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MAN'S MOST DANGEROUS
MYTH: The Fallacy of Race

MAN'S MOST DANGEROUS
MYTH: The Fallacy of Race

By M. F. ASHLEY MONTAGU

with a foreword by
ALDOUS HUXLEY

SECOND EDITION: REVISED AND ENLARGED

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK

FIRST EDITION 1942
SECOND EDITION 1945
First printing 1945
Second printing 1946
Third printing

COPYRIGHT 1945, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK

PUBLISHED IN C.RFAT BRITAIN AND INDIA BY GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE,
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON AND BOMBAY

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To BERN DIBNER

Ethnic facts, though they constitute the
main problem in the early stages of his-
tory, gradually lose momentum in pro-
portion to the progress of civilization.
ERNEST RENAN

On the reality or unreality of this prin-
ciple, which dominates at the present
hour the secret or avowed aspirations
of the peoples, depends the whole of
their future. Peace among peoples and
the crown of such a peace that is, the
vast solidarity of mankind, the dream
of the future can in any case only tri-
umph when founded on the conviction
of the organic and mental equality of
peoples and races. JEAN FINOT

FOREWORD
BY ALDOUS HUXLEY

DR. ASHLEY MONTAGU'S book possesses two great merits
arely found in current discussions ot human problems.
Where most writers over-simplify, he insists on the
principle of multiple and interlocking causation. And where
most assume that "facts will speak for themselves," he makes
it clear that facts are mere ventriloquists' dummies, and can
be made to justify any course of action that appeals to the
socially conditioned passions of the individuals concerned.

These two truths are sufficiently obvious; but they are
seldom recognized, for the good reason that they are very
depressing. To recognize the first truth is to recognize the fact
that there are no panaceas and that therefore most of the
golden promises made by political reformers and revolution-
aries are illusory. And to recognize the truth that facts
do not speak for themselves, but only as man's socially con-
ditioned passions dictate, is to recognize that our current
educational processes can do very little to ameliorate the
state of the world. In the language of traditional theology (so
much more realistic, in many respects, than the "liberal"
philosophies which replaced it), most ignorance is voluntary
and depends upon acts of the conscious or subconscious will.
Thus, the fallacies underlying the propaganda of racial hatred
are not recognized because, as Dr. Montagu points out, most
people have a desire to act aggressively, and the members of
other ethnic groups are convenient victims, whom one may
attack with a good conscience. This desire to act aggressively
has its origins in the largely unavoidable frustrations imposed
upon the individual by the processes of early education and
later adjustments to the social environment.

Dr. Montagu might have added that aggressiveness pays a
higher dividend in emotional satisfaction than does coopera-

viii FOREWORD

tion. Cooperation may produce a mild emotional glow; but
the indulgence of aggressivness can be the equivalent of a
drinking bout or sexual orgy. In our industrial societies, the
goodness of life is measured in terms of the number and
intensity of the excitements experienced. (Popular philoso-
phy is moulded by, and finds expression in, the advertising
pages of popular magazines. Significantly enough, the word
that occurs more frequently in those pages than any other
is "thrill.") Like sex and alcohol, aggressiveness can give
enormous thrills. Under existing social conditions, it is there-
fore easy to represent aggressiveness as good.

Concerning the remedies for the social diseases he has so
penetratingly diagnosed, Dr. Montagu says very little, except
that they will have to consist in some process of education.
But what process? It is to be hoped that he will answer this
question at length in another work.

PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION

IN OUR TIME the problem of race has assumed an alarmingly
exaggerated importance. Alarming, because racial dogmas
have been made the basis for an inhumanly brutal poli-
tical philosophy which has already resulted in the death or
social disiranchisement of millions of innocent individuals;
exaggerated, because when the nature of contemporary "race"
theory is scientifically analyzed and understood it ceases to
be of any significance for social or any other kind of action.
It has been well said that there is no domain where the
sciences, philosophy, and politics blend to so great an extent
and in their contact have so much importance to the man
of the present day and of the future as in modern "race"
theory. Few problems in our time more pressingly require
solution than this. It is highly desirable, therefore, that the
facts about "race," as science has come to know them, should
be widely disseminated and clearly understood. To this end
the present volume has been written.

This book is not, however, a textbook or a treatise on
"race." It purports to be an examination of a contemporary
aspect of "race" theory, and seeks only to clarify the reader's
thinking upon an important subject about which clear think-
ing is generally avoided. It would be quite beyond the powers
of a single person to say all that there is to be said upon the
subject. As Aldous Huxley has put it, "The problem of race
is as much a problem for historians and psychologists as for
geneticists. Anything like a definite and authoritative solu-
tion of it must be cooperative. Also, to carry conviction, it
should be official and international. The race theory claims
to be scientific. It is, surely then, the business of science, as
organized in the universities and learned societies of the
civilized world, to investigate this claim."

x PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

It is as a contribution towards such an end from a scientist,
who is a student both of human culture and human biology,
that the present volume is offered.

It may appear to some that I have been a little hard on the
physical anthropologists. I can only plead that as a physical
anthropologist myself I believe it is high time that the tradi-
tional conception of "race" held by my professional brethren
be dealt with frankly. Friends can afford to be frank, let
enemies be cautious.

Much of the material presented in this volume has ap-
peared separately in the form of articles published under the
following titles and in the following journals: "The Problem
of Race," the New York Times, 13 August 1939 (reprinted
in the Teaching Biologist, IX [1939], 25-26); "Race and
Kindred Delusions," Equality, I (1939), 20-24; "Should We
Ignore Racial Differences?" Town Meeting, (1939), pp. 3-9;
"The Socio-Biology of Man," the Scientific Monthly, L (1940),
483-90; "Problems and Methods Relating to the Study of
Race," Psychiatry, III (1941), 493-506; "Race, Caste and
Scientific Method," Psychiatry, IV (1941), 337-38; "The Con-
cept of Race in the Light of Genetics," the Journal of Hered-
ity, XXXII (1941), 243-47; "The Genetical Theory of Race,
and Anthropological Method," American Anthropologist,
XLIV (1942), 369-75. All these articles have been thoroughly
rewritten and revised. To the editors and proprietors of the
journals in which they originally appeared I am grateful for
permission to make use of them in the writing of the present
volume.

Professors Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology, Otto Klineberg of the Department of
Psychology, Robert K. Merton of the Department of Sociol-
ogy, all of Columbia University, Professor E. G. Conklin of
Princeton, and Professor Conway Zirkle of the Department
of Botany, University of Pennsylvania, have read the follow-
ing pages in manuscript and have made many suggestions
for its improvement. For this service I am deeply grateful to
each of them, as I am to Mr. Aldous Huxley for his excellent

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xl

Foreword, which was originally written for a briefer version
of this book. For all errors of commission and omission and
for all the views expressed in this volume, unless specifically
credited to others, I alone am responsible.

M. F. ASHLEY MONTAGU

Department of Anatomy

Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

9 June 1942

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION

THE RESPONSE to the first edition of this book has been
very gratifying, calling for reprinting within a year and
a new edition within two years of its publication. In
these disjointed times the book apparently fills a need. As
most of the reviewers perceived, it does not proceed along
conventional lines, and I suppose it owes some measure of
its success to its unconventional character. It is said, by way
of improvement on the original, that the way to hell is "paved
with good conventions"; possibly the way to salvation lies
over the broken fragments of those conventions. Those who
have experienced some difficulty in negotiating the new way
have been very few indeed. The new road over the fragments
of the old seems a sturdy enough structure.

Since this book first left the press the world has been hor-
rified by the calculated murder of millions of Jews and Poles
by the Nazis. This represents the practical realization of the
doctrine of "racism" which has been so viciously enthroned
as a political doctrine in the Nazi Weltanschauung. That
doctrine, from beginning to end, is an absurdity; but absurdi-
ties have never wanted for believers, and, as Voltaire re-
marked, "as long as pople believe in absurdities they will
continue to commit atrocities."

We, in the United States, have every hope of eradicating
the contagion of "racism" from our own body politic; but
hope alone will not suffice. We must act, and in order to do so
intelligently we must know what this disease is and how it
may best be dealt with. At a time when "race" riots have
awakened many Americans to the seriousness of the problem
of "race" on their very own hearths, when discrimination
against colored and minority groups in the armed forces and
in industry has shocked many Americans into an awareness

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii

of their own guilt, it is incumbent upon every decent Amer-
ican to acquaint himself with the facts relating to the "race"
problem, so that he may be prepared to deal with it in an
intelligent, efficient, and humane manner.

It is even yet not widely enough realized that from its
earliest beginnings the doctrine of the racists has had as its
object the overthrow of democracy. This should become clear
to anyone who reads the account which is given in the fol-
lowing pages of the rise and development of that doctrine.

As The New Republic (14 August 1944) put it in com-
menting on the Philadelphia rapid-transit strike, "although
good work is being done here and there on a limited and
local scale to promote interracial understanding, the problem
as a whole is rushing to a major climax. Unless we can master
it it will continue to offer the greatest threat to our democ-
racy/'

I have tried to make the present edition of the book very
much more helpful in a practical way than was the first edi-
tion, and I trust I have satisfied Mr. Aldous Huxley's hope
that I discuss the remedies for the social disease of racism.

In the present edition the text has been thoroughly revised,
and much new material has been added. Four new chapters
and three new appendixes have been added. These are, "Race
and Blood," "Myths Relating to the Physical Characters of
the American Negro/' "Are the Jews a Race?" "What Is the
Solution?" and Appendices A, B, and D. The four new chap-
ters have already appeared elsewhere. For permission to repro-
duce them here in revised form I am grateful to the editors
of the journals in which they were first published. "The Myth
of Blood," Psychiatry, VI (1943), 15-19; "The Physical An-
thropology of the American Negro," Psychiatry, VII (1944),
31-44; "Are the Jews a Race?" The Chicago Jewish Forum,
II (1944), 77-86; "What Is the Solution?" Educational Ad-
ministration and Supervision, XXX (1944), 424-30.

In order to meet the requirements of those who may wish
to pursue various aspects of the subject farther, I have consid-
erably increased the number of references to the literature. In

xiv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

this connection I have been at particular pains to bring to
the reader's attention many excellent studies which are not
usually mentioned in works of this kind.

The second edition of this work has greatly benefited from
the critical reading which it received in manuscript from my
friends Professor Theodosius Dobzhansky, of the Department
of Zoology, Columbia University, and Professor and Mrs.
William Boyd, of the Department of Biochemistry, Boston
University. My grateful thanks are due to each of them. To
Professor A. A. Neuman, principal of Dropsie College, Phila-
delphia, I owe many thanks for his very helpful reading of
Chapter 13. To my daughter Audrey Montagu my thanks
are due for her very efficient reading to me of part of the
manuscript while I typed it. I am much indebted to my wife
for reading the galleys.

M. F. ASHLEY MONTAGU
Department of Anatomy
Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Contents

FOREWORD, BY ALDOUS HUXLEY IX

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiv

1. THE ORIGIN OF THE CONCEPT OF "RACE" 1

2. THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF THE OLDER ANTHRO-
POLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF "RACE" 27

3. THE GENETICAL THEORY OF "RACE" 37

4. THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 46

5. "RACE" AND SOCIETY 62

6. BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 74

7. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 89

8. THE CREATIVE POWER OF "RACE" MIXTURE 1OO
Q. EUGENICS, GENETICS, AND "RACE" 134

10. "RACE" AND CULTURE 146

11. "RACE" AND WAR 156

12. "RACE" AND "BLOOD" 180

13. MYTHS RELATING TO THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS

OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO ig2

14. ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 218

15. "RACE" AND DEMOCRACY 236

1 6. WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? 244

APPENDIX A: THE SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY-SCHOOL
PLAN IN EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY AND CO-
OPERATION 253

APPENDIX B.* AN EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT DEALING WITH

THE RACES OF MANKIND 259

APPENDIX C: STATE LEGISLATION AGAINST MIXED MAR-
RIAGES IN THE UNITED STATES 26 1

APPENDIX D: A FILM STRIP ON RACE 2 68

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2 69

INDEX 291

1

THE ORIGIN OF THE CONCEPT
OF "RACE"

THE IDEA OF "RACE" represents one of the greatest errors,
if not the greatest error, of our time, and the most
tragic. What "race" is everyone seems to know, and is
only too eager to tell. All but a very few individuals take it
completely for granted that scientists have established the
"facts" about "race" and that they have long ago recognized
and classified the "races" of mankind. Scientists do little to
discourage this view, and, indeed, many of them are quite as
deluded as most laymen are about the subject. It is not diffi-
cult to see, therefore, why most of us continue to believe that
"race" really corresponds to something which exists. As Hog-
ben has remarked: "Geneticists believe that anthropologists
have decided what a race is. Ethnologists assume that their
classifications embody principles which genetic science has
proved correct. Politicians believe that their prejudices have
the sanction of genetic laws and the findings of physical anthro-
pology to sustain them." l Actually, none of them have any
grounds, but those which spring from their prejudices, for
such beliefs.

Lord Bryce has very cogently remarked: "No branches of
historical inquiry have suffered more from fanciful specula-
tion than those which relate to the origin and attributes of the
races of mankind. The differentiation of these races began in
prehistoric darkness, and the more obscure a subject is, so
much the more fascinating. Hypotheses are tempting, because
though it may be impossible to verify them, it is, in the paucity
of data, almost equally impossible to refute them." 2

Certainly it is true that many scientists have attempted to

* Hogben, "The Concept of Race," in Genetic Principles in Medicine and
Social Science f pp. 122-44.

2 Bryce, Race Sentiment as a Factor in History, p. 3.

2 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

classify and fit the varieties of mankind into definite groups,
the so-called "races," but all such attempts have thus far met
with complete failure, because they were too arbitrary and
were based upon a misconception of the nature and variability
of the characters to be classified. It is easy to see that an African
Negro and a white Englishman must have had a somewhat
different biological history and that their obvious physical dif-
ferences would justify the biologist in classifying them as be-
longing to two different races. In biology a race is defined as
a subdivision of a species which inherits physical character-
istics distinguishing it from other populations of the species.
In this sense there are a number of human races. But this is
not the sense in which most of the older and many of the mod-
ern physical anthropologists, race classifiers, and racists have
used the term.

In the biological sense there do, of course, exist races of
mankind. That is to say, mankind may be regarded as being
comprised of a small number of groups which as such are often
physically sufficiently distinguishable from one another to jus-
tify their being classified as separate races. But not all groups
of mankind can be so classified. For example, Germans, taken
as a whole, do not differ sufficiently from Englishmen or any
other people of Western Europe to justify their separation
into a distinct race or variety. All the peoples of Western
Europe belong to the same race, the White race, and the dif-
ferences some of them exhibit simply represent small local
differences arising from either circumscribed inbreeding or
crossbreeding with members of a different racial group. In
Eastern Europe, among the Russians, the influence of Mon-
goloid admixture is to this day discernible in a small propor-
tion of Russians far removed from the geographic habitat of
the Mongoloids. But this admixture does not make such Rus-
sians members of a distinct race. In Russia, as in America,
there are many different local types of men, but the majority of
these belong to the white division of mankind. In Russia some
are obviously of Mongoloid origin, and in America some are

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 3

of Negroid origin, but in both countries it is often difficult
so say whether a person belongs to the one racial group or the
other. It is just such difficulties as these which render it impos-
sible to make the sort of racial classifications which some
anthropologists and others have attempted. 3 The fact is that
all human beings are so much mixed with regard to origin
that between different groups of individuals intergradation
and "overlapping" of physical characters is the rule. It is for
this reason that it is difficult to draw up more than a very few
hard and fast distinctions between even the most extreme
types. As Huxley and Haddon have remarked, "The essential
reality of the existing situation ... is not the hypothetical
sub-species or races, but the mixed ethnic groups, which can
never be genetically purified into their original components,
or purged of the variability which they owe to past crossing.
Most anthropological writings of the past and many of the
present fail to take account of this fundamental fact." *

The classifiers of the "races" of mankind who have devised
the various classificatory schemes of mankind during the last
hundred years have mostly agreed in one respect they have
unexceptionally taken for granted the one thing which they
were attempting to prove, namely, the existence of human
"races." Starting off with the fact that "extreme" types of man-
kind, such as Negro, white, and Mongol, could obviously be
recognized as races, they proceeded to refine these grosser
classifications by attempting to fit local groups of mankind
into similar racial schemes. Thus, to take a contemporary ex-
ample, Coon has recently created a large number of new
European "races" and "sub-races" upon the basis, principally,
of slight differences in the characters of the head exhibited by
different groups of Europeans, and this in spite of the fact

For the latest anthropological example of this fractionating method see
Coon, The Races of Europe.

4 Huxley and Haddon, We Europeans, p. 114. In order to avoid possible
misunderstanding of this passage, it is desirable to point out that by the
words "genetically purified into their original components" the authors do not
have reference to preexisting "pure races/' but to the earlier states of their
ancestral groups.

4 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

that it has been repeatedly shown that the form of the head
is not as constant a character as was formerly believed. 5 It is
true that some biologists have seen fit to create new sub-races
among lower animals on the basis of such single slight char-
acters as difference in pigmentation of the hair on a part of
the tail. Such a procedure would be perfectly justifiable if it
were taxonomically helpful. One would not even have to make
the requirement that animals in other groups shall not ex-
hibit this character, but one would have to insist that every
member of one or both sexes of the new subrace shall exhibit
it. No such requirement is fulfilled by the "races" and "sub-
races" which Coon has created.

Coon simply assumes that within any group a certain nu-
merical preponderance of heads of specified diameters and,
let us say, noses of a certain shape and individuals of a certain
stature are sufficient to justify the creation of a new "race" or
"sub-race." Few biologists would consider such a procedure
justifiable, and there are few anthropologists who would. Yet
this kind of overzealous taxonomy, which has its origin prin-
cipally in the desire to force facts to fit preexisting theories,
continues down to the present day. More often than not such
theories do not even require the sanction of facts to be put
forward as such. Thus, the term "race" and the concept
for which it stands represent one of the worst examples we
know of a word which from the outset begs the whole ques-
tion.

The very failure of ambitious anthropological attempts at
classification strongly suggests that human races do not, in
fact, exist in anything like the number that many of these
classifiers would have us believe.

From the standpoint of a classificatory view of mankind
which has due regard for the facts it is possible to recognize
four distinctive stocks or divisions of mankind. These are the

Boas, Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants; Shapiro,
Migration and Environment; Dornfeldt, "Studien fiber Schadelform und
Scha'delveranderung von Berliner Ostjuden und ihren Kindern," Zeit. f. Morph.
. Anthrop., XXXIX (1941), 290-372; Goldstein, Demographic and Bodily
Changes in Descendants of Mexican Immigrants.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 5

Negroid or black, the Archaic white or Australoid, 6 the Cau-
casoid or white, and the Mongoloid stocks or divisions of man-
kind. It is preferable to speak of these four large groups of
mankind as divisions rather than as races, and to speak of the
varieties of men which enter into the formation of these divi-
sions as ethnic groups. 7 The use of the term "division" em-
phasizes the fact that we are dealing with a major group of
mankind sufficiently distinguishable in its physical characters
from the three other major groups of mankind to be classified
separately. Nothing more is implied in the term than that.

Within the four divisions of mankind there exist many
local types, but most of these local types are very much mixed,
so that only in a relatively small number of cases is it possible
to distinguish distinctive local types or ethnic groups among
them. Every honest attempt to discuss such types or ethnic
groups within the larger parent groups or divisions deserves
the fullest encouragement. Truth will not be advanced by
denying the existence of large groups of mankind character-
ized, more or less, by distinctive inherited physical traits. Such
physical differences are found in geographical and genetic
races of animals and plants in a state of nature, and in many
races of domestic animals and cultivated plants. They are, to
a certain extent, also found in the human species, but in a
much more fluid condition, since the biological development
and diversification of mankind has proceeded upon very dif-
ferent lines from that which has characterized animals and
plants. No animal or plant has had a comparable history of
migration and hybridization, and that is the fundamentally
important fact to be remembered when comparisons are made
between man and other living forms. Not one of the great
divisions of man is unmixed, nor is any one of its ethnic
groups pure; all are, indeed, much mixed and of exceedingly
complex descent. Nor is there any scientific justification for

a The Archaic white or Australoid stock is really a subdivision, larger than
an ethnic group, of the Caucasoid division. For a more detailed discussion and
classification of the divisions and ethnic groups of mankind see Montagu,
An Introduction to Physical Anthropology.

i For a definition of ethnic group see p. 43.

6 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

overzealous or emotional claims that any one of them is in any
way superior to another.

The differences between the four great divisions of man
and between the ethnic groups comprising them represent
merely a distribution of variations which, for reasons which
may be fairly clearly understood, occur more frequently in
one group than they do in another. We shall deal with these
reasons later.

It has already been pointed out that in biological usage a
race is conceived to be a subdivision of a species which inher-
its the physical characteristics serving to distinguish it from
other populations of the species. In the genetic sense a race
may be defined as a population which differs in the incidence
of certain genes from other populations, with one or more of
which it is exchanging or is potentially capable of exchanging
genes across whatever boundaries (usually geographical) may
separate them. 8 If we are asked whether in this sense there
exist a fair number of races in the human species, the answer
is very definitely that there do. But this is not the sense in
which the racists and many of the race classifiers employ the
term. For them "race" represents a compound of physical,
mental, personality, and cultural traits which determines the
behavior of the individuals inheriting this alleged compound.

Let us see, as an example typical of this school, what a lead-
ing exponent of Nazi "race science," Dr. Lothar G. Tirala,
has to say upon this subject. 9 He begins by asserting that it is
"a well-grounded view that it is highly probable that different
human races originated independently of one another and
that they evolved out of different species of ape-men. The
so-called main races of mankind are not races, but species/'

Far from being "well-grounded," this is a view which no
biologist and no anthropologist with whom I am familiar
would accept. It is today generally agreed that all men belong
to the same species, that all were probably derived from the
same ancestral stock, and that all share in a common patrimony.

sDobzhansky, "On Species and Races of Living and Fossil Man," Amer. J.
Phys. Anthrop., N.S., II (1944), 251-65.
Tirala, Rasse, Geist und Seele.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 7

But Dr. Tirala's principle argument is that "the voice of
blood and race operates down to the last refinements of
thought and exercises a decisive influence on the direction of
thought/' Hence, "race science proves" that there exist irrec-
oncilable differences in soul, mind, and blood between the
numerous "races" which German "race scientists" have recog-
nized. And, of course, that the German, or "Aryan," "race" is
the "superior" and "master" "race." 10

Such views and the practices to which they lead are far from
being limited to the Germans. Actually they are to be found
in many lands. In America discrimination against colored
peoples is of long standing. 11 Modern writers such as Lothrop
Stoddard, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield Osborn have
freely espoused racist views of the most reactionary kind.
Osborn, in his preface to Madison Grant's book, writes, "race
has played a far larger part than either language or nationality
in moulding the destinies of men; race implies heredity, and
heredity implies all the moral, social, and intellectual char-
acteristics and traits which are the springs of politics and gov-
ernment." 12

Endlessly shuffled and reshuffled, this is a typical statement of
the racist position. It is alleged that something called "race"
is the prime determiner of all the important traits of body and
soul, of character and personality, of human beings and na-
tions. And it is further alleged that this something called

10 For an interesting account of the Nazi application of the "methods" of
"race science" in which the writer himself repeats many of the favored Nazi
doctrines, see T. U. H. Ellinger, "On the Breeding of Aryans," Journal of
Heredity, XXXIII (1942), 141-43. For replies to this article see Goldschmidt,
"Anthropological Determination of 'Aryanism,' " Journal of Heredity, XXXIII
(1942), 215-16, and Montagu, "On the Breeding of 'Aryans,' " Psychiatry, VI
(i943) 254-55.

11 See Appendix C, p. 262. In at least one state of the Union a book such
as this is against the law. Mississippi, 1930 Code Ann., sec. 1103: "Any person,
firm or corporation who shall be guilty of printing, publishing or circulating
printed, typewritten or written matter urging or presenting for public accept-
ance or general information, arguments or suggestions in favor of social equal-
ity or of intermarriage between whites and negroes, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanour and subject to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or
imprisonment not exceeding six months or both fine and imprisonment in
the discretion of the court."

12 Osborn, in Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, p. vii.

8 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

"race" is a fixed and unchangeable part of the germ plasm,
which, transmitted from generation to generation, unfolds in
each people as a typical expression of personality and cul-
ture.

Such a conception of "race" has no basis in scientific fact or
in any other kind of demonstrable fact. It is a pure myth, and
it is the tragic myth of our tragic era. Tragic, because it is
believed and made the basis for action, in one way or another,
by so many people in our time. It is this conception of "race"
which will be principally examined in the following pages.

The modern conception of "race" is of fairly recent origin.
Neither in the ancient world nor in the world up to the latter
part of the eighteenth century did there exist .any notion cor-
responding to it. Caste and class differences certainly were
made the basis for discrimination in many societies, and in
ancient Greece some attempt was even made to find a biologi-
cal foundation for such discrimination, but this was of a very
limited nature and never gained general acceptance. 13

A study of the cultures and literatures of mankind, both
ancient and recent, shows us that the conception that there
are natural or biological races of mankind which differ from
one another mentally as well as physically is an idea which was
not born until the latter part of the eighteenth century. In
this connection, Lord Bryce, after surveying conditions in
the ancient world, in the Middle Ages, and in modern times
up to the French Revolution, arrives at the following conclu-
sions, which he regards as broadly true. The survey of the
facts, he says, "has shown us that down till the days of the
French Revolution there had been very little in any country,
or at any time of self-conscious racial feeling . . . however
much men of different races may have striven with one an-
other, it was seldom any sense of racial opposition that caused
their strife. They fought for land. They plundered one an-
other. . . . But strong as patriotism and national feeling

is Diller, Race Mixture among the Greeks Before Alexander; Hertz, Race
and Civilization, pp. 137 ff.; Nilsson, "The Race Problem of the Roman Em-
pire," Hereditas, 11 (1921), 370-90; Detweiler, "The Rise of Modern Race
Antagonisms/' 4merican Journal of Sociology, XXXV11I (1932), 738-47.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 9

might be, they did not think of themselves in terms of eth-
nology, and in making war for every other sort of reason never
made it for the sake of imposing their own type of civilization.
. . , In none of such cases did the thought of racial distinc-
tions come to the front." 14

Within any society men might be persecuted or made the
object of discrimination on the grounds of differences in re-
ligion, culture, politics, or class, but never on any biological
grounds such as are implied in the idea of "racial" differences.

In Europe during the Middle Ages and also during the
Renaissance the Jews, for example, were singled out for dis-
crimination and persecution, but this was always done on so-
cial or cultural or religious grounds. The Jews, it was urged,
had killed Christ; they were accused of murdering Christian
children and using their blood for ritual purposes; they were
infidels, anti-Christians, usurers; they were almost everything
under the sun; but whatever was held against them was never
attributed to biological reasons. The "racial" interpretation
is a modern "discovery"; that is the important point to grasp.
The objection to any people on "racial" or biological grounds
is a purely modern innovation. That is the basic sense in
which modern group antagonism differs from that which pre-
vailed in earlier periods.

It is perfectly true that in ancient Rome, as in ancient
Greece, the suggestion was sometimes heard that other peoples
were more stupid than they and that occasionally an attempt
was made to link this up with biological factors; but this idea,
at no time clearly or forcibly expressed, seems, as we have
already said, never to have taken root. On the other hand, in
a stratified society based upon slavery, in which birth was
definitely related to social status, it can easily be seen how
the notion of the biological character of social classes, as of
the individuals comprising them, could have originated. Yet
anything remotely resembling such an idea was held by no
more than a handful of Greek and Roman thinkers, and never
for a moment extended beyond the boundaries of their own

14 Bryce, op. cit., pp. 25-26.

10 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

esoteric circles. It was only among peoples who had themselves
for centuries been emancipated from serfdom and slavery
that the hereditary or biological conception of race differences
was developed. What is of the greatest interest and impor-
tance for an understanding of this matter is that the concept
developed as a direct result of the trade in slaves by European
merchants. But what is of even greater interest and impor-
tance is that as long as the trade was taken for granted and
no one raised a voice against it, the slaves, though treated as
chattels, were nonetheless conceded to be human in every
sense but that of social status. This may well be seen in the
treatment accorded to slaves in Portugal and Spain, where
many of them rose to high positions in Church and State.
Portugal, it should be remembered, initiated the African slave
trade as early as the middle of the fifteenth century. A study of
the documents of the English and American slave traders
down to the eighteenth century also serves to show that these
men held no other conception of their victims than that by
virtue of their position as slaves, or potential slaves, they
were socially their captors' caste inferiors. But that was not
all, for many of these hard-headed, hard-bitten men recorded
their belief that their victims were often quite clearly their
own mental equals and superior to many at home. 15

It was only when voices began to make themselves heard
against the inhuman traffic in slaves and when these voices
assumed the shape of influential men and organizations that,
on the defensive, the supporters of slavery were forced to look
about them for reasons of a new kind to controvert the dan-
gerous arguments of their opponents. The abolitionists argued
that those who were enslaved were as good human beings as
those who had enslaved them. To this, by way of reply, the
champions of slavery could only attempt to show that the
slaves were most certainly not as good as their masters. And in
this highly charged emotional atmosphere there began the

i&Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to
America.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 11

recitation of the catalogue of differences which were alleged
to prove the inferiority of the slave to his master. 10

I have thus far only had in mind the literature published in
England during the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Much of this literature found its way to the American colo-
nies, and after the successful conclusion of the War of Inde-
pendence a certain amount of controversial literature was
published in this country. In France and in Holland similar
works were making their appearance. It is also well to remem-
ber that it was during this period that the conception of the
noble savage was born in France and that the romantics were
not slow to capitalize upon the new-found theme in such nov-
els as Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (lySS). 17 In
Germany, during this period, we have such distinguished think-
ers as Kant, Hardenberg, Herder, Goethe, and Novalis, not
to mention many others, emphasizing the unity of mankind.
Herder, in particular, foresaw the danger of those loose and
prejudiced utterances of the defenders of the institution of
slavery, and in a memorable passage of his great book Ideen
zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit, one of the
most beautiful expressions of the human spirit ever composed,
he writes: "I could wish the distinctions between the human
species, that have been made from a laudable zeal for dis-
criminating science, not carried beyond due bounds. Some
for instance have thought fit to employ the term races for
four or five divisions, originally made in consequence of coun-
try or complexion: but I see no reason for this appella-
tion. Race refers to a difference of origin, which in this case
does not exist, or in each of these countries, and under each of
these complexions, comprises the most different races. . . .
In short, there are neither four or five races, nor exclusive

16 So far as I know, an historical study of this aspect of the subject has
never been attempted. It would make a fascinating and highly desirable con-
tribution to our better understanding of the period and of the antecedents
of racism.

if For an account of the rise and development of the convention of the
noble savage in French and, particularly, in English literature see Fairchild,
The Noble Savage; see also Dykes, The Negro in English Romantic Thought.

12 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

varieties, on this Earth. Complexions run into each other:
forms follow the genetic character: and upon the whole, all
are at last but shades of the same great picture, extending
through all ages, and over all parts of the Earth. They belong
not, therefore, so properly to systematic natural history, as to
the physico-geographical history of man."

This was written in 1784, and I have quoted from the Eng-
lish translation of i8o3. 18 That Herder was able to write so
clearly and sensibly was principally due to the fact that a
young countryman of his had, in 1775, at the age of 23, pub-
lished a work entitled De generis humani varietate, that is to
say, On the Natural Variety of Mankind. In this work the
author, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, set out to classify the
varieties of mankind and to show what significance was to be
attached to the differences, physical and mental, which were
supposed to exist between them. He warned at the outset that
no sharp distinctions could be made between peoples. Thus,
he writes: "Although there seems to be a great difference be-
tween widely separate nations, that you might easily take the
inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope, the Greenlanders, and
the Circassians for so many different species of men, yet when
the matter is thoroughly considered, you see that all do so
run into one another, and that one variety of mankind does so
sensibly pass into the other, that you cannot mark out the lim-
its between them.

"Very arbitrary indeed both in number and definition have
been the varieties of mankind accepted by eminent men." 19

In the greatly enlarged and revised third edition of this
work, published in 1795, Blumenbach concluded that "no
variety of mankind exists, whether of colour, countenance, or
stature, etc., so singular as not to be connected with others of
the same kind by such an imperceptible transition, that it is

is Herder, Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man; translated by
T. Churchill, 1, 298.

i Blumenbach, On the Natural Variety of Mankind, trans, and ed. by
Thomas Bendyshe, in The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich
Blumenbach, pp. 99 ff.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT i$

very clear they are all related, or only differ from each other
in degree."

Not only did Blumenbach make clear the essential unity of
mankind, but he also clearly recognized and unequivocally
stated the fact that all classifications of the so-called "varieties"
of mankind are arbitrary. "Still/ 1 he remarked, "it will be
found serviceable to the memory to have constituted certain
classes into which the men of our planet may be divided/' 20

The history of physical anthropology, after the death of
Blumenbach in 1840, may be described in terms of the grad-
ual inversion of this genetic approach to the problem of the
variety of mankind. The investigation of causes steadily gave
way to the description of effects, as if the classification of man-
kind into as distinctive groups as it was possible to create were
the proper function of a science of physical anthropology.
The Darwinian conception of evolution understood as deal-
ing with continuous materials which, without selection, would
remain unchanged, led anthropologists to believe that tax-
onomic exercises in the classification of mankind, both living
and extinct, would eventually succeed in elucidating the re-
lationships of the various groups of mankind to one another.
We now know, however, that the materials of evolution are
not continuous, but discontinuous, and that these materials
are paniculate, independent genes, which are inherently vari-
able and unstable. Thus, classifications based on the shifting
sands of morphological characters and physique can be ex-
tremely misleading. 21 How misleading may be gathered from
the fact that in nature there actually exist many groups of
individuals in different phyla which are distinct species in
every sense but the morphological sense. 22 The converse is also

20 Ibid.

21 For a brilliant discussion of this subject see Hogben, "The Concept of
Race," in his Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science, pp. 122-44.

22 Thorpe, "Biological Races in Hyponemeuta padella L.," Journal of the
Linnaean Society (Zoology), XXXVI (1928), 621; Thorpe, "Biological Races in
Insects and Allied Groups," Biological Reviews, V (1930), 177; "Ecology and
the Future of Systematics," in The New Systematics (edited by Julian Huxley),
p. 358. Dobzhansky and Epling, Contributions to the Genetics, Taxonomy, and
Ecology oi Drosophtla pseudoobscura and Its Relatives.

i 4 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

true that is, individuals of the same species may exhibit
morphological differences which the taxonomist would be
led to assign to different specific rank. Such classificatory ef-
forts belong to the pre-Mendelian era. Then, as now, the con-
cept of the continuity of species and the existence of transi-
tional forms was associated with a belief in missing links. The
anthropologist conceived his task to be to discover these links
so that when they were all joined together we should have a
complete Great Chain of Being leading from the most "prim-
itive" to the most "advanced" form of man. 23 In this manner
was established a "racial" anthropology which sought to iden-
tify some of these links among existing peoples upon the basis
of the physical differences which averaged groups of them ex-
hibited. As Linton has remarked, "unfortunately, the early
guesses on these points became dogmas which still have a
strong influence on the thought of many workers in this
field." 24

It may be noted here that at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century Cuvier had clearly forseen the danger of such
arbitrary procedures, and in the preface to his Le Regne ani-
mal (Paris, 1817) he explained: "It formed no part of my
design to arrange the animated tribes according to gradations
of relative superiority, nor do I conceive such a plan to be
practical. I do not believe that the mammalia and the birds
placed last are the most imperfect of their class; still less do I
think that the last of the mammiferous tribes are superior to
the foremost of the feathered race or that the last of the mol-
lusca are more perfect than the first of the annelides or zoo-
phytes. I do not believe this to be, even if we understand the
vague term perfect in the sense of 'most completely organized.'
I have considered my divisions only as a scale of resemblance
between the individuals classed under them. It is impossible
to deny that a kind of step downward from one species to an-
other may occasionally be observed. But this is far from being

23 For a critical discussion of such terms as "advanced" and "primitive" see
Montagu, "Some Anthropological Terms: A Study in the Systematic^ of Confu-
sion," American Anthropologist, XL VII (1945), 119-33.

** Linton, The Study of Man, p. 22.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 15

general, and the pretended scale of life, founded on the
erroneous application of some partial remarks, to the im-
mensity of organized nature, has proved essentially detri-
mental to the progress of natural history in modern times." 28

Throughout Blumenbach's great work and the several edi-
tions which followed it the author carefully examined and
rebutted, point by point, many of the arguments which had
been brought forward to prove the inequality of the varieties
of man and most convincingly showed that there was no good
reason to believe anything other than that they were essen-
tially equal. Thus, the treatise which is properly regarded
as having laid the foundations of the science of physical
anthropology stood four square for the essential relative men-
tal and physical equality of man. The writings which such
works inspired were many and important.

For example, Blumenbach's pupil Alexander von Hum-
boldt writes: "Whilst we maintain the unity of the human
species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption
of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more
susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more en-
nobled by mental cultivation than others but none in them-
selves nobler than others. All are in like degree designed for
freedom; a freedom which in the ruder conditions of society
belongs only to the individual, but which in social states en-
joying political institutions appertains as a right to the whole
body of the community/' And then Alexander quotes his
brother Wilhelm, who writes: "If we would indicate an idea
which throughout the whole course of history has ever more
and more widely extended its empire or which more than
any other, testifies to the much contested and still more decid-
edly misunderstood perfectibility of the whole human race
it is that of establishing our common humanity of striving
to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of
every kind have erected amongst men, and to treat all man-
kind without reference to religion, nation, or colour, as one
fraternity, one great community, fitted for the attainment of

25 Cuvier, Le Regne animal, I, iv-vi.

16 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

one object, the unrestrained development of the psychical
powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identi-
cal with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man
towards the indefinite extension of his existence. He regards
the earth in all its limits, and the heavens as far as his eye can
scan their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given
to him as the objects of his contemplation, and as a field for
the development of his energies . . . the recognition of the
bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading princi-
ples in the history of mankind." 26 Such writings and the
humanitarian efforts of the abolitionists eventually told upon
public opinion, and in 1808 Britain forever abolished the
slave trade, while America soon followed suit. But slavery sur-
vived as an institution in the United States for almost sixty
years more, and during that period the issue which it pre-
sented kept the subject of "race" differences always at white-
hot temperature.

But to return to the beginning. When we examine the
scientific literature of the seventeenth century with a view to
discovering what beliefs were held concerning the variety of
man, we find that it was universally believed that mankind
was comprised of a single species and that it represented a
unitary whole. With one or two heretical exceptions it was
the accepted belief that all the children of mankind were
one and that all had a common ancestry in Adam and Eve.
Physical differences were, of course, known to exist between
groups of mankind, but what was unfamiliar was the notion
that the differences exhibited by such peoples represented
anything fundamental. Such differences, it was believed,
could all be explained as due to the action of differing
climatic and similar physiographic factors. Mankind was
essentially one. Questions concerning the variety of man-
kind occurred to very few thinkers during the seventeenth
century, not because the known varieties of man were so few
that they suggested no problem requiring solution, but prin-

2 Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos, pp. 368-69; Wilhelui von Humboldt,
tyber die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java, III, 426.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 17

cipally, it would seem, because the conception of the "superi-
ority" or "inferiority*' of "races'* which followed upon the
increasing exploitation of other peoples had not yet devel-
oped to the point of creating a "race problem" and of thus
focussing attention upon the significance of the variety pre-
sented by mankind. It was not until the economic relations of
Europe and the peoples of other remote countries had given
rise to the necessity of defining their place in nature that
attempts were made to deal with this problem, and such at-
tempts naturally first appeared toward the end of the eight-
eenth century. It was only then that the poet could write:

Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru.

Today "racism" has become an important ideological weapon
of imperialistic politics. 27

During the whole of the seventeenth century only five dis-
cussions relating to the varieties of mankind were published,
and toward the end of the century Leibnitz, the great mathe-
matician, summed up the prevailing view as to the nature of
the peoples of the earth when he wrote: "I recollect reading
somewhere, though I cannot find the passage, that a certain
traveler had divided man into certain tribes, races, or classes.
He made one special race of the Lapps and Samoyedes, an-
other of the Chinese and their neighbors, another of the Caf-
fres, or Hottentots. In America, again, there is a marvelous dif-
ference between the Galibs, or Caribs, who are very brave and
spirited, and those of Paraguay, who seem to be infants or in
pupilage all their lives. That, however, is no reason why all
men who inhabit the earth should not be of the same race,

27 For a valuable discussion of this matter see Arendt, "Race Thinking
before Racism," The Review of Politics, VI (1944), 36-73. "It is highly probable
that thinking in terms of race would have disappeared in due time together
with other irresponsible opinions of the nineteenth century, if the 'scramble
for Africa' and the new era of Imperialism had not exposed Western humanity
to new and shocking experiences. Imperialism would have necessitated the
invention of racism as the only possible 'explanation' and excuse for its deeds,
even if no race-thinking ever had existed in the civilized world," p. 73. See
also "Racism and Imperialism," in Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American
Thought, 1860-1915.

i8 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

which has been altered by different climates, as we see that
beasts and plants change their nature and improve or de-
generate/' 28

The work which Leibnitz had in mind was a very brief
anonymous essay published in the Journal des Sgavans, 24
April 1684, but it remained almost completely unnoticed. 29
"Race" was definitely not yet in the air. It was not until 1749
that Buffon introduced the word "race," in its zoological
sense, into the scientific literature. 30 It is very commonly stated
that Buffon classified mankind into six races. Buffon, who
was the enemy of all rigid classifications, did nothing of the
sort. 81 What he did was to describe all the varieties of man
known to him in a purely descriptive manner. This is how he
begins: "In Lapland, and on the northern coasts of Tartary,
we find a race of men of an uncouth figure, and small stature."
And this is the type of Buffon's description. Here the word
"race" is used for the first time in a scientific context, and it
is quite clear, after reading Buffon, that he uses the word in
no narrowly defined, but rather in a general, sense. 32 Since
Buffon's works were very widely read and were translated into
many European languages, he must be held at least partially
responsible for the diffusion of the idea of a natural separa-
tion of the "races" of man. With the voyages of discovery of
Bougainville (1761-1766), of Wallis-Carteret (1766), of Cap-
tain Cook (1768-1779), and many others in the eighteenth

26 Leibnitz, Otiurn Hanoveriana; sive, Miscellanea, p. 37.

29 [Bernier.] "Nouvelle division de la Terre, par les diffe>entes Especes ou
races d'hommes qui 1'habitant, envoyee par un fameux Voyageur a Monsieur
. . . pen prs en ces termes," Journal des Scavans, April 24, 1684, pp. 148-55.

so Buffon, Histoire naturelle, generate et particuliere, Paris, 1749. Natural
History, General and Particular, trans, by William Smellie, corrected by Wil-
liam Wood, London, 1812, III, 302 ff.

si Hrdlicka, for example, lists six varieties as purporting to be "Buffon's
classification." "The Races of Man," in Scientific Aspects of the Race Prob-
lem, p. 174.

82 The word "race" had previously been used for the first time by Francois
Tant in a book entitled Thresor de la langue francaise published in 1600. Tant
derived the word from the Latin radix, a root, and stated that "it alludes to
the extraction of a man, of a dog, of a horse; as one says of good or bad race/'
See Paul Topinard, "De la notion de race en anthropologie," Revue d'Anthro-
pologie, ad ser., II (1879), 590.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 19

century, there was opened up to the view of Europe many new
varieties of mankind people hitherto undreamed of who
thickly populated the islands of the South Seas, of Melanesia,
and the Antipodes. Soon the inhabitants of the most distant
parts of the world began to be described, pictured, and some
of their skulls and handiwork were collected and put on
display.

Meanwhile, the African slave trade had increased to enor-
mous proportions, and when for the first time the traffic was
seriously opposed and challenged, the question of the status
and relation of the varieties of man became the subject of
heated debate.

When the issue of slavery was at last settled in England, it
was far from being so in France and Holland. It was not until
1848 that the French emancipated their Negroes, and not
until 1863 that the Dutch liberated their slaves. During all
these years the monstrous "race" legend was continually be-
ing reenforced by the advocates of slavery, so that when the
matter was finally settled in favor of the freedom of the slaves,
the "race" legend nonetheless persisted. It served to solace the
hearts of the aggrieved supporters of slavery, while now, more
than ever, they saw to it that the myths and legends which
they had served to popularize should continue.

The idea of "race" was not so much the deliberate creation
of a caste seeking to defend its privileges against what was
regarded as an inferior social caste as it was the strategic elab-
oration of erroneous notions which had long been held by
many slaveholders. In order to bolster up those rights, the
superior caste did not have far to seek for reasons which would
serve to justify its conduct. The illiteracy and spiritual be-
nightedness of the slaves supplied plenty of material for elab-
oration on the theme of their essential inferiority. Their dif-
ferent physical appearance provided a convenient peg upon
which to hang the argument that this represented the external
sign of more profound ineradicable mental and moral inferi-
orities. It was an easily grasped mode of reasoning, and in this
way the obvious difference in their social status, in caste status,

20 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

was equated with their obviously different physical appear-
ance, which, in turn, was taken to indicate a fundamental
biological difference. Thus was a culturally produced differ-
ence in social status converted into a difference in biological
status. What was once a social difference was now turned into
a biological difference which would serve, it was hoped, to
justify and maintain the social difference. 83

This was a most attractive idea to many members of a so-
ciety in which the classes were markedly stratified, and it was
an idea which had a special appeal for those who were begin-
ning to take an active interest in the scientific study and classi-
fication of the "races" of mankind. 3 * For the term "race,"
taken over from Buffon with all the emotional connotations
which had been added to it, had by now become established.
It was with this tremendous handicap of a term in which the

88 It is of interest to note here that in what is undoubtedly the best study
of the problem of the Negro in America which has ever been made, the
author's independent analysis of the historical facts has led him to practically
identical conclusions. "The biological ideology had to be utilized as an in-
tellectual explanation of, and a moral apology for, slavery in a society which
went out emphatically to invoke as its highest principles the ideas of the
inalienable rights of all men to freedom and equality of opportunity." Myrdal,
An American Dilemma: the Negro Problem and Modern Democracy* I (1944),
83-89, "The correct observation that the Negro is inferior was tied up to the
correct belief that man belongs to the biological universe, and, by twisting
logic, the incorrect deduction was made that the inferiority is biological in
nature." Ibid., p. 97.

a* We may refer, for example, to the case of the President of the Anthropo-
logical Society of London, Dr. James Hunt. On 17 November 1863, Dr. Hunt
read a paper before the society entitled "The Negro's Place in Nature," in
which he asserted the essential inferiority in every way of the Negro to the
white man. "The Negro's Place in Nature," Memoirs of the Anthropological
Society (London), I (1863), 1-64. This paper was discussed at the meeting in
a very dignified manner by everyone, but the egregious and insolent Dr. Hunt,
who wound up his reply to his critics with the remark that "all he asked was
that scientific evidence of this character should be met by scientific argument,
and not by poetical clap-trap, or by gratuitous and worthless assumptions."
The Anthropological Review (London), I (1863), 391. The paper was the
immediate cause of many acrimonous debates, and it was, of course, received
with much applause by the proslavery party. When, in 1869, Dr. Hunt died,
a New York paper wrote that "Dr. Hunt, in his own clear knowledge and
brave enthusiasm, was doing more for humanity, for the welfare of mankind,
and for the glory of God, than all the philosophers, humanitarians, philan-
thropists, statesmen, and, we may say, bishops and clergy of England together."
This last quotation is taken by the present writer from Haddon's History of
Anthropology, p. 45.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 21

very question it was attempted to ask had from the outset al-
ready been begged that the anthropologists of the nineteenth
century set out on their researches. The question they had
begged was the one which required to be proved namely,
that mental and moral differences were associated with "ra-
cial" external physical differences. As Wundt once remarked
in another connection, "in the seventeenth century God gave
the laws of Nature; in the eighteenth century Nature did this
herself; and in the nineteenth century individual scientists
take care of that task/' 85

As an independent student of the evidence has put it:
"When between the years 1859 and 1870, anthropological
societies were established successively in Paris, London, New
York, Moscow, Florence, Berlin and Vienna, the attention of
anthropologists was in the first place directed mainly to the
statement and exploration of problems of racial divergence
and distribution. The need for such a preliminary investi-
gation was great. Popular opinion drew a rough but ready
distinction between men of white, black, yellow and red
colour, vaguely supposed to be native to the continents of
Europe, Africa, Asia and America respectively. Differences of
average stature, of physiognomy, of growth and texture of
hair were recognized; certain combinations of these char-
acters were supposed to be typical of certain ultimate stocks.
There was the self-satisfied view, influenced by an uncriti-
cal acceptance of the Biblical account of the Creation, Flood,
dispersion of its survivors, selection of a favoured race, which
either alone or [together] conspicuously expressed divine pur-
pose, that divergence from European standard[s] should ulti-
mately be explained in terms of degradation/* 8e

It was not the scientific student of the varieties of man who
influenced European thought along these lines, but an aris-
tocrat of the Second Empire, an amateur orientalist and pro-
fessional diplomat, Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau. Gobi-
neau was a reactionary litterateur who rejected the principles

Wundt, Philosophische Schriften, Vol. Ill (1883).
ae Foster, Travels and Settlements of Early Man, p. 31.

22 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

of the French Revolution 8T and looked upon the egalitarian
philosophy of the Revolution as the hopelessly confused ex-
pression of a degraded rabble. If the founders of the First
Republic had believed in the liberty, equality, and fraternity
of mankind, this scion of the Second Republic would show
that, on the contrary, a man was not bound to be free, that
the idea of the brotherhood of man was a vain and empty
dream, a repugnant dream which could never be realized
because it was based upon a fallacious belief in the equality of
man. 38 These views were fully set out by Gobineau in his four-
volume work entitled Essai sur I'inegalite des races humaines
(Paris, 1853-55). I* 1 ^56 an American translation of the first
two volumes under the title Moral and Intellectual Diversity
of Races was published at Philadelphia. This was the work
of H. Hotz, the Alabama proslavery propagandist. As Finot
has pointed out, Gobineau never attempted to conceal or
dissimulate the motives which led him to write the Essai. For
him "it was only a matter of bringing his contributions to the
great struggle against equality and the emancipation of the
proletariat. Imbued with aristocratic ideas ... he thought
it useful to oppose to the democratic aspirations of his time a
number of considerations on the existence of natural castes
in humanity and their beneficial necessity/' 39 Ever since their
publication Gobineau's works have enjoyed a great reputa-
tion among reactionaries and demagogues of every kind, and

87 For an account of Gobineau and a distillation of the essence of Gobineau-
ism by an apostle both of Gobineau and Nietzsche, Dr. Oscar Levy, see
Gobineau The Renaissance, trans, by Paul V. Cohn. The introductory essay
of some sixty pages by Dr. Levy is an amazing thing.

88 Observe how from the same motives, this reaction expresses itself in the
recent work of one of the most confused of American racists, namely, in
Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race. He writes: "There exists
to-day a widespread and fatuous belief in the power of environment, as well
as of education and opportunity, to alter heredity, which arises from the
dogma of the brotherhood of man, derived in turn from the loose thinkers
of the French Revolution and their American mimics. Such beliefs have done
much damage in the past, and if allowed to go uncontradicted, may do much
more serious damage in the future" (p. 14). It may be remarked here that the
history of Europe during the last hundred and fifty years could well be
written in terms of reaction to the principles of the French Revolution. This
would be a theme well worth the attention of serious historians.

8 Finot, Race Prejudice, p. 7.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 23

forty-five years later the views expressed in these works were
taken over lock, stock, and barrel by Houston Stewart Cham-
berlain and elaborated in his Grundlagen des neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts** This work, which has been accurately de-
scribed as "one of the most foolish books ever written," 41 en-
joyed an enormous popularity in Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II
called it "my favorite book" and distributed it generously
among the nobility and his friends.

Both Gobineau's and Chamberlain's works may be regarded
as the spiritual progenitors of Hitler's Mein Kampf. In this
connection the words of John Oakesmith, written during the
first World War, are of interest to those who, by the same
forces which were operative then, have since been plunged into
a far more horrible war. Oakesmith writes: "The essence of
the racial theory, especially as exhibited by the writers of the
school of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, is profoundly im-
moral, as well as unnatural and irrational. It asserts that by
virtue of belonging to a certain 'race/ every individual mem-
ber of it possesses qualities which inevitably destine him to
the realization of certain ends; in the case of the German
the chief end being universal dominion, all other 'races' being
endowed with qualities which as inevitably destine them to
submission and slavery to German ideals and German mas-
ters. This essentially foolish and immoral conception has been
the root-cause of that diseased national egotism whose ex-
hibition during the war has been at once the scorn and the
horror of the civilized world." 42

The German people have especially excelled in the art of

40 Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1899, trans,
by John Lees as Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, 1910.

41 Oakesmith, Race and Nationality, p. 58. "It is false in its theories; ludi-
crously inaccurate in its assertions; pompous and extravagant in its style;
insolent to its critics and opponents. . . . He frequently uses the term 'lie*
and 'liar* of others, while claiming that he is himself constitutionally in-
capable of lying ... he is a violent and vulgar charlatan all the time. We
say, and say it deliberately, that he is the only author we have read to whose
work Sidney Smith's phrase, 'the crapulous eructations of a drunken cobbler/
could appropriately be applied." A judgment with which all impartial critics
would agree.

*2 Oakesmith, Race b Nationality, p. 50.

24 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

creating myths. Luther successfully destroyed the mythologi-
cal element in Christianity for them, and from the date of that
event to the advent of the Nazi Party the Germans have been
seeking for some new mythology wherewith to replace it.
When he cleared the way for a more purely rational inter-
pretation of the world, Luther failed to forsee that by with-
drawing the experience of the mystical, the poetic, the meta-
physical, and the dramatic he was building for a time when
the people would be glad to embrace a mythology whose bar-
barity would have appalled him. One may never deprive a
people of its feeling of unity with the world, with nature, and
with man without providing another set of such metaphysical
beliefs unless one is ready to brook disaster. We may recall
the words of Renan, written in 1848: "The serious thing is
that we fail to perceive a means of providing humanity in the
future with a catechism that will be acceptable henceforth,
except on the condition of returning to a state of credulity.
Hence, it is possible that the ruin of idealistic beliefs may be
fated to follow hard upon the ruin of supernatural beliefs
and that the real abasement of the morality of humanity will
date from the day it has seen the reality of things. Chimeras
have succeeded in obtaining from the good gorilla an aston-
ishing moral effort; do away with the chimeras and part of the
factitious energy they aroused will disappear.'* 48

In post-war Europe the Germans found themselves espe-
cially alone and frustrated. By providing them with a new
mythology and making the Germans feel that they belong to a
"superior race" the "Herrenvolk," Hitler has provided them
with a completely acceptable Weltanschauung. The fact that
the Nazi "race" theories represent the most ludicrous and
vicious mythology that has ever been perpetrated upon a peo-
ple does not, as we know, prevent these myths from function-
ing as if they were perfectly true. "If one asks," as Bonger has
done, "whether these partisans are even partially successful
in proving their thesis, then the answer must be a decided No.
It is really no theory at all but a second-rate religion. Things
are not proved but only alleged. It resembles the commonly

Renan, The Future of Science, p. xviii.

ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT 25

witnessed phenomenon of persons who, quite without reason,
fancy themselves (and often their families also) to be more
exalted than others. But now it is carried out on a much
larger scale, and with much greater detriment to society, since
it affects wide-spread groups." 44

Lord Bryce, writing in 1915 during the first Great War, re-
marked: "Whatever condemnation may be passed and justly
passed upon reckless leaders and a ruthless caste that lives
for and worships war, it is the popular sentiment behind them,
the exaggeration of racial vanity and national pretensions,
that has been and is the real source of the mischief, for with-
out such sentiments no caste could exert its baleful power.
Such sentiments are not confined to any single nation, and
they are even more widespread in the wealthier and more edu-
cated classes than in the humbler. ... It is largely by the
educated, by students and writers as well as by political lead-
ers, that the mischief has been done, more or less everywhere,
even if most conspicuously in one country." 45

How much more true are these words today than when they
were written more than a quarter of a century ago! We all
know only too well to what horrors the reckless "fiihrers" of
the Axis nations and their ruthless conduct has led the world,
and we have witnessed the exaggeration of "racial" vanity and
national pretensions assuming the form of a national religion
and serving as an incentive to the common people to follow
wherever their "fiihrers" lead. We have seen the virus of the
disease spread throughout the greater part of the civilized
world in the form of "racism," and we have heard the word
"race" bandied about over the ether waves, on the screen, from
the pulpit, in our houses of legislature, and used by dema-
gogues in various mischievous ways. In the press, in books of
all sorts, and in the magazines the same mischievous looseness
of usage is observable. Today, more than at any previous time
in the history of man, it is urgently necessary to be clear as to
what this term is and what it really means.

The fact is that the modern concept of "race" is a product

** Bonger, Race and Crime, p. n.

45 Jiryce, Race Sentiment as a Factor in History, p. 31 1

26 ORIGIN OF THE "RACE" CONCEPT

of emotional reasoning, and, as we have seen, from their in-
ception "racial" questions have always been discussed in an
emotional atmosphere. It might almost be called "the atmos-
phere of the scapegoat/' or possibly, "the atmosphere of frus-
tration or fear of frustration." As a writer in the leading organ
of British science, Nature, recently remarked: "It is a matter
of general experience that racial questions are rarely debated
on their merits. In the discussion of the effects of inter-racial
breeding among the different varieties of the human stock, the
issue is commonly determined by prejudice masquerading as
pride of race or political and economic considerations more or
less veiled in arguments brought forward in support of a pol-
icy of segregation. No appeal is made to what should be the
crucial factor, the verdict of science." 46

And what is the verdict of science? It will be our purpose to
make that verdict clear in the following pages. The older
school of anthropologists, 47 many of whom are still with us,
grappled with the problem unsuccessfully, and the great num-
ber of conflicting viewpoints they presented shows that they
were, as a whole, never quite clear as to what was to be meant
by the term "race." They were, and are, in fact, something
less than clear, if not altogether confused. In the following
chapter a brief attempt will be made to show how many past
and some present anthropologists have come to be confused
upon the subject of "race."

46 "Miscegenation in South Africa," Nature, No. 3698, 1940, p. 357. The
above remarks refer to the official report of the commissioners appointed by
the Union of South Africa under the title Report of the Commission on Mixed
Marriages in South Africa, Government Printer, Pretoria, 1939. This document
provides an interesting case study of "race" prejudice in action. American
precedents, laws, and decisions, relating to intermarriage are heavily drawn
upon.

*7 in using the term "anthropologist" here and in the succeeding chapter
I am referring to the physical anthropologist as distinguished from the cul-
tural anthropologist. Possibly because of their wider and more intimate
acquaintance with a variety of different peoples, particularly in the more
isolated parts of the world, cultural anthropologists have generally been some-
what more sound on the subject of "race" than have most physical anthro-
pologists.

THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF THE OLDER

ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPTION

OF "RACE"

IT is SAID that when the theory of evolution was first an-
nounced it was received by the wife of the Canon of Worces-
ter Cathedral with the remark, "Descended from the apes!
My dear, we will hope it is not true. But if it is, let us pray
that it may not become generally known/'

The attempt to deprive the anthropologist of his belief in
"race" may by some be construed as a piece of cruelty akin to
that which sought to deprive the Canon's wife of her belief
in the doctrine of special creation. Indeed, the anthropologi-
cal conception of "race" and the belief in special creation have
much in common, for "race" is, to a large extent, the special
creation of the anthropologist. Many anthropologists take it
for granted that "race" corresponds to some sort of physical
reality in nature. In fact, the idea of "race" is one of the most
fundamental, if not the most fundamental, of the concepts
with which the anthropologist has habitually worked. To
question the validity of this basic concept upon which he was
intellectually brought up as if it were an axiom is something
which has thus far occurred only to a very small number of
anthropologists. One doesn't question the axioms upon which
one's science and one's activity in it are based at least, not
usually. One simply takes them for granted.

But in science, as in life, it is a good practice to attach from
time to time a question mark to the facts one takes most for
granted. In science such questioning is important, because
without it there is a very real danger that certain erroneous
or arbitrary ideas, which may originally have been used merely
as a convenience, may become so fortified by technicality and
so dignified by time that their original infirmities may even-
tually be wholly concealed.

*8 THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT

So with the anthropological conception of "race." It is, in-
deed, nothing but a whited sepulcher, a conception which in
the light of modern field and experimental genetics is utterly
erroneous and meaningless; "an absolutist system of meta-
physical beliefs/' as it has been called. 1 As such it should be
dropped from the anthropological, as well as from the popu-
lar, vocabulary, for it is a tendentious term which has done
an infinite amount of harm and no good at all.

The development of the anthropological conception of
"race" may be traced from the scholastic naturalization of
Aristotle's doctrine of the predicables of genus, species, dif-
ference, property, and accident. From the Middle Ages
through the seventeenth century it may be traced to the early
days of the Age of Enlightenment, when Linnaeus, in 1735,
took over the concepts of class, genus, and species from the
theologians to serve him as systematic tools. 2 As we have al-
ready seen, the term race was first introduced into the litera-
ture of natural history by Buffon in 1749. But Buff on did not
use the term in a classificatory sense; this was left to Blumen-
bach.

As used by Blumenbach the term "race" merely represented
an extension of the Aristotelian conception of species, that is
to say, it was a subdivision of a species. Like Buffon, Blumen-
bach recognized that all human beings belong to a single spe-
cies, as did Linnaeus, and he considered it merely convenient
to distinguish between certain geographically localized groups
of man. Thus, when with Blumenbach, in the late eighteenth
century, the term assumed a classificatory value, it was under-
stood that that value was purely arbitrary and no more than
a simple convenience. It had no other meaning than that.

The Aristotelian conception of species, the theological doc-
trine of special creation, and the natural history of the Age
of Enlightenment, as represented particularly by Cuvier's
brilliant conception of unity of type, namely, the idea that ani-

1 Myrdal, An American Dilemma: the Negro Problem and American Democ-
racy, p. i 16.

2 Linnaeus, Systema naturae.

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT 29

mals can be grouped and classified upon the basis of assem-
blages of structural characters which, more or less, they have
in common, these three conceptions fitted together extremely
well and together yielded the idea of the fixity of species. An
idea which, in spite of every indication to the contrary in the
years which followed, was gradually extended to the concept
of "race/*

The Darwinian contribution showed that species were not
as fixed as was formerly believed and that under the action of
natural selection one species might give rise to another; that
all animal forms might change in this way. It is, however,
important to remember that Darwin conceived of evolution
as a process involving continuous materials, which, without
the operation of natural selection, would remain unchanged.
Hence, under the Darwinian conception of species it was still
possible to think of species as relatively fixed and immutable,
with the modification that under the slow action of natural
selection they were capable of change. For the nineteenth-
century anthropologist, therefore, it was possible to think of
"race" or "races," not as Blumehbach did in the eighteenth
century, as an arbitrary convenience in classification, but as
Cuvier did at the beginning of the nineteenth century for all
animals, as groups which could be classified upon the basis of
the fact that they possessed an aggregate of common physical
characters, and, as Darwin later postulated, as groups which
varied only under conditions of natural selection, but which
otherwise remained unchanged.

This is essentially a scholastic conception of species with the
one fundamental difference that a species is considered to be
no longer fixed and immutable. As far as the older anthro-
pological conception of "race" is concerned, the anthropolo-
gist, unaware of the significance of the findings of modern
genetics, still thinks of "race" as the scholastics thought of spe-
cies, as a knowable fixed whole, the essence of which could be
defined per genus, propria, et differentia.

In fact, the anthropologist has simply taken over a very
crude eighteenth-century notion which was originally offered

30 THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT

as a general term with no more than an arbitrary value a
convenient aid to the memory in discussing various groups
of mankind and having erected a tremendous terminology
and methodology about it, has deceived himself in the belief
that he is dealing with an objective reality. 8

The most recent illuminating reflection of a persisting
anthropological viewpoint occurs in a charming book by a
young student of anthropology. In explaining the object of her
investigations, she writes: "The purpose of these anthropo-
metric measurements is the establishment of various physical
types. The more generalized characteristics of the inhabitants
of any one locality can be determined, the resemblances to
and differences from their near and remote neighbours, the
ideal being to discover the various strains which are there
combined. In anthropology there is as much information to
be gathered from these physical measurements as from the
study of social habits and customs." 4 This represents a fair
statement of older anthropological viewpoint, "the purpose of
these anthropometric measurements is the establishment of
various physical types."

For more than a century anthropologists have been direct-
ing their attention principally toward the task of establishing
criteria by means of which "races" of mankind might be de-
fined. They have all taken completely for granted the one
thing which required to be proved, namely, that the concept
of "race" corresponds with a reality which can actually be
measured and verified and descriptively set out so that it can
be seen to be a fact. 5 In short, that the anthropological con-

s As Boas remarked, "we talk all the time glibly of races and nobody can give
us a definite answer to the question what constitutes a race." Speaking of his
earliest days as a physical anthropologist, Boas says: "When I turned to the
consideration of racial problems I was shocked by the formalism of the work.
Nobody had tried to answer the questions why certain measurements were
taken, why they were considered significant, whether they were subject to
other influences." Boas, "History and Science in Anthropology: a Reply,"
American Anthropologist, XXXVIII (1936), 140.

* Crockett, The House in the Rain Forest, p. 29.

5 T. H. Huxley in his essay, published in 1865, "On the Methods and Results
of Ethnology," (reprinted in Man's Place in Nature) refused to use the terms
"Stocks," "varieties," "races," or "species" in connection with man, "because

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT 31

ception of "race" is true which states that in nature there exist
groups of human beings comprised of individuals each of
whom possess a certain aggregate of characters which indi-
vidually and collectively serve to distinguish them from the
individuals in all other groups.

Stated in plain English, this is the conception of "race"
which most anthropologists have held and practically every-
one else, except the geneticist, accepts. When, as in recent
years, some anthropologists have admitted that the concept
cannot be strictly applied in any systematic sense, they have
thought to escape the consequences of such an admission by
calling the term a "general" one and have proceeded to play
the old game of blind man's bluff with a sublimity which is
almost enviable. For it is not vouchsafed to everybody com-
pletely to appreciate the grandeur of the doctrine here im-
plied. The feeling of dissatisfaction with which most an-
thropologists have viewed the many laborious attempts at
classification of human groups has not, on the whole, suc-
ceeded in generating the unloyal suspicion that something is
probably wrong somewhere. If there is a fault, it was gen-
erally supposed, it lies, not with the anthropologist, but with
the material, with the human beings themselves who are the
subject of classification, and who always vary so much that it
is difficult to put them into the group where they were con-
ceived properly to belong. This was definitely a nuisance, but,
happily, one which could be overcome by the simple expedi-
ent of "averaging" the principal occupation of the student
of "race."

THE "RACE OMELETTE"

The process of averaging the characters of a given group, of
knocking the individuals together, giving them a good stir-
ring, and then serving the resulting omelette as a "race" is

each of these last well-known terms implies, on the part of its employer, a
preconceived opinion touching one of those problems, the solution of which
is the ultimate object of the science; and in regard to which therefore,
ethnologists are especially bound to keep their minds open and their judg-
ments freely balanced."

32 THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT

essentially the anthropological process of race-making. It may
be good cooking, but it is not science, since it serves to confuse
rather than to clarify. When an omelette is done, it has a fairly
uniform character, though the ingredients which have entered
into its making have been varied. So it is with the anthropolog-
ical conception of "race." It is an omelette which corresponds
to nothing in nature. An indigestible dish conjured into being
by an anthropological chef from a number of ingredients
which are extremely varied in character. The omelette called
"race" has no existence outside the statistical frying pan in
which it has been reduced by the heat of the anthropological
imagination.

It is this omelette conception of "race" which is so meaning-
less meaningless because it is inapplicable to anything real.
When anthropologists begin to realize that the proper de-
scription of a group does not consist in the process of making
an omelette of it, but in the description of the character of the
variability of the elements entering into it its ingredients
they will discover that the fault lies, not with the materials,
but with the conceptual tool with which they have approached
its study.

That many differences exist between various groups of
human beings is obvious; but the older anthropological con-
ception of these is erroneous, and the older anthropological
approach to the study of their relationships is unscientific
and pre-Mendelian. Taxonomic exercises in the classification
of assemblages of phenotypical (external) characters will never
succeed in elucidating the relationships of different groups of
mankind to one another, for the simple reason that it is not
assemblages of characters which undergo changes in the forma-
tion of the individual and the group, but the single units which
determine those characters. One of the great persisting errors
involved in the anthropological conception of "race" has been
due to the steady refusal to recognize this fact. The fact is that
it is not possible to classify the various groups of mankind by
means of the characters which anthropologists have custom-
arily used, because those characters do not behave as pre-

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT 33

Mendelian anthropologists think they should behave, namely,
as complexes of characters which are relatively fixed and are
transmitted as complexes, but instead in a totally different
manner, as the expressions of the many independent units,
linked and unlinked, which have entered into their formation.

The parallel in the history of biology is very striking here
and has been well illustrated by Dobzhansky, who writes:
"Many studies on hybridization were made before Mendel,
but they did not lead to the discovery of Mendel's laws. In
retrospect, we see clearly where the mistake of Mendel's pred-
ecessors lay: they treated as units the complexes of characteris-
tics of individuals, races, and species, and attempted to find
rules governing the inheritance of such complexes. Mendel
was first to understand that it was the inheritance of separate
traits, and not complexes of traits, which had to be studied.
Some of the modern students of racial variability consistently
repeat the mistakes of Mendel's predecessors." 6

The materials of evolution are not represented by con-
tinuous aggregates ot characters, but by discontinuous pack-
ages of chemicals, each of which is more or less independent in
its action and may be only partially responsible for the form
of any character. These chemical packages are the genes, sit-
uated within the chromosomes, structures with which some
anthropologists are still scarcely on terms of a bowing ac-
quaintance. These genes retain both their independence and
their individual character more or less indefinitely, although
probably they are all inherently variable and, in time, may
undergo mutation. For these reasons any conception of "race"
which operates as if inheritance were a matter of transmitting
gross aggregates of characters is both erroneous and meaning-
less. To quote Dobzhansky once more: "The difficulty . . .
is that . . . the concept of race as a system of character aver-
ages logically implies a theory of continuous, rather than of
particulate, germ plasm. Such a concept is obviously out-
moded and incapable of producing much insight into the
causative factors at work in human populations. Although

Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, *d ed., p. 78.

34 THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT

the genie basis of relatively few human traits is known, it
seems that following up the distribution of these few traits
could tell us more about the 'races' than a great abundance
of measurements/' 7

GENE DISTRIBUTION

The principle agencies of evolutionary change in man are
primarily gene variability and gene mutation. Evolutionary
changes are brought about through the rearrangements in the
combinations of genes in consequence of the operation of
many secondary factors, physical and social, and changes in
the character of the genes themselves. In order to appreciate
the meaning of the variety presented by mankind today it is
indispensably necessary to understand the manner in which
these agencies work. Thus, in man it is practically certain that
some forms of hair and skin color are due to mutation, while
still other forms are due to various combinations of these
mutant forms with one another, as also with nonmutant forms.
The rate of mutation for different genes in man is unknown,
though it has been calculated that the gene for normal clot-
ting mutates, for example, to the gene for haemophilia in one
out of every 50,000 individuals per generation. It is highly
probable, for example, that such a mutation occurred in the
person of 'Queen Victoria, a fact which in the long run may
perhaps constitute her chief claim to fame. 8 The rate of muta-
tion of the blood group genes, however, must be very low, and
it is unlikely that such mutations have occurred since the
apes and man set out upon their divergent evolutionary paths. 9
Mutation of skin-color genes is also very infrequent, while
mutation of hair-form genes is not much more frequent.

If anthropologists are ever to understand how the different
groups of mankind came to possess such characters as dis-
tinguish the more geographically isolated of them, and those
of the less isolated, more recently mixed, and therefore less

7 Ibid., p. 359.

Haldane, Heredity and Politics, p. 88.

See Boyd, "Critique of Methods of Classifying Mankind/' Amer. ]. Phys.
Anthrop., XXIV (1940), 333-64-

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT 35

distinguishable groups, it should .be obvious that they must
cease making omelettes of the very ingredients, the genes,
which it should be our purpose to isolate and map. What must
be studied are the frequencies with which such genes occur
in different groups or populations. The gene frequency
method for the study of the distribution of human genes is a
very simple one and has now been available for some time, 10
as likewise, has been the method for the study of genetic link-
age in man. 11 If, roughly speaking, one gene be assigned to
every component of the human body, it should be fairly clear
that as regards the structure of man we are dealing with many
thousands of genes. If we consider the newer concepts, which
recognize that the adult individual represents the end point
in the interaction between all these genes, the complexities
become even greater. The morphological characters which an
thropologists have relied upon for their "racial'* classifications
have been very few indeed, involving a minute fraction of the
great number of genes which it would actually be necessary to
consider in attempting to make any real that is to say,
genetically analytic classification of mankind.

To sum up, the indictment against the older anthropologi-
cal conception of "race" is (i) that it is artificial, (2) that it
does not correspond with the facts, (3) that it leads to confu-
sion and the perpetuation of error, and finally, (4) that for
all these reasons it is meaningless, or rather, more accurately,
such meaning as it possesses is false. Based as it is on unex-
amined facts and unjustifiable generalizations, it were better
that the term, being so weighed down with false meaning, were
dropped altogether than that any attempt should be made to
give it a new meaning.

If it be agreed that the human species is one and that it con-
sists of a group of populations which, more or less, replace
each other geographically or ecologically and of which the

10 For a clear exposition of the facts see Strandskov, "The Distribution of
Human Genes," Scientific Monthly, LII (1941), 203-15, and "The Genetics of
Human Populations," American Naturalist, LXXVI (1942), 156-64.

11 Finney, "The Detection of Linkage," The Journal of Heredity, XXXIII
(1942), 156-60.

36 THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPT

neighboring ones intergrade or hybridize wherever they are
in contact, or more potentially capable of doing so, 12 then it
should be obvious that the task of the student interested in the
character of these populations must be to study the frequency
distribution of the genes which characterize them not en-
tities which are purely imaginary.

Physical anthropologists must recognize that they have un-
wittingly played no small part in the creation of the myth of
"race," which in our time has assumed so monstrous a form.
I am glad to say that since the appearance of the first edition
of the present volume a number of anthropologists have seen
their responsibility clearly and are taking active steps to exor-
cise the monster and deliver the thought and conduct of man-
kind from its evil influence. 13 Dr, G. M. Morant, England's
most distinguished physical anthropologist, in delivering the
address on physical anthropology at the centenary meeting
of the Royal Anthropological Institute, said: "It seems to me
that the time has come when anthropologists must fully rec-
ognize fundamental changes in their treatment of the problem
of racial classification. The idea that a race is a group of peo-
ple separated from all others on account of the distinctive
ancestry of its members, is implied whenever a racial label is
used, but in fact we have no knowledge of the existence of
such populations to-day or in any past time. Gradations be-
tween any regional groups distinguished, and an absence of
clear-cut divisions, are the universal rule. Our methods have
never been fully adapted to deal with this situation/* u

12 Mayr, "Speciation Phenomena in Birds," Biological Symposia, II (1941),
66, and Systematics and the Origin of Species, pp. 154 ff.

is For a very cogent criticism, by a cultural anthropologist, along similar
lines, see the chapter on "race" in Linton, The Study of Man, pp. 22-45. See
also Krogman, "The Concept of Race/' in Linton (editor), The Science of
Man in the World Crisis, pp. 38-62.

i* Morant, "The Future of Physical Anthropology," Man, XLIV (1944), 17.

THE GENETICAL THEORY OF "RACE

AWE HAVE SEEN in the preceding chapter, the customary
anthropological practice of describing the end effects of
complex variations without in the least attempting to
consider the nature of the conditions responsible for them
can never lead to any understanding of their real meaning. In
order to understand the end effects with which the physical
anthropologist has been so much concerned it is necessary to
investigate the causes producing them, and this can only be
done by studying the conditions under which they come into
being, for it should be obvious that it is the conditions pro-
ducing the end effects which must be regarded as the efficient
causes of them.

Comparing numerous series of metrical and nonmetrical
characters relating to different varieties of man may provide
us with some notion of their likenesses and differences and
tell us something of the variability of some of their characters;
this is necessary and important, but no amount of detailed
description and comparison will ever tell us how such groups
came to be as we now find them, unless a serious attempt be
made to discover the causes operative in producing them.

Such causes are at work before our eyes at the present time.
In this country and in many other parts of the world where
different "racial" groups have met and interbred determinate
sequences, if not the actual mechanism, of "racial" change
may be studied. The discoveries of geneticists concerning the
manner in which genetic changes are brought about in other
organisms and what little is known of human genetics renders
it perfectly clear that the genetic systems of all living things
behave fundamentally according to the same laws. If this is
true, it then becomes possible, for the first time in the history
of man, to envisage the possibility of an evolution in genetical
terms of the past stages through which man, as a variable spe-

38 THE GENETICAL THEORY

cies, must have passed in order to attain his present variety
of form and also, in the same terms, to account for that variety.

The principles involved in the genetic approach to the study
of the evolution of the variety of mankind cannot be fully
discussed here, because such a discussion would demand a
treatise in itself. Here we have space only for a very condensed
statement of the genetical theory of "race."

The conception of "race" here proposed is based upon the
following fundamental postulates: (i) that the original an-
cestral species population was genetically relatively hetero-
geneous; (2) that by migration away from this original an-
cestral group, individual families became dispersed over the
earth; (3) that some of the groups thus dispersed became
geographically isolated from one another and remained so
isolated for more or less considerable periods of time; (4) that
upon all these isolated groups several of the following factors
came into play as conditions leading to evolutionary change:
(a) the genetic drift or inherent variability of the genotypic,
materials composing each individual member of the group;
(6) physical change in the action of a gene associated, in a
partial manner, with a particular character, that is, gene
mutation.

Genetic drift describes the fact that, given a genetically
heterogeneous or heterozygous group, spontaneous random
variations in gene frequencies will, in the course of time,
occur, so that such originally relatively homogeneous groups
will come to exhibit certain differences from other isolate
groups which started with the same genetic equipment.

Mutation defines the condition in which a particular gene
undergoes a permanent change of some sort, and its action ex-
presses itself in the appearance of a new form of an old char-
acter. Mutations have almost certainly occurred independently
in different human isolate groups, at different times and at
different rates, and have affected different characters. Thus,
for example, in one part of a population mutant dominant
genes leading to the development of kinky hair may have
appeared and have ultimately become scattered throughout

THE GENETICAL THEORY 39

the population, as among the Negroes. We cannot, however,
make a similar assumption for all or many of the characters
which distinguish the four divisions of man from one an-
other. Skin color, for example, cannot be so simply explained,
for the probabilities are high that even in early man there
were already in existence various skin colors and also, inci-
dentally, hair colors. 1 Selection has undoubtedly played an
important part here.

Up to this point we have seen that it is possible to start with
a genetically heterogeneous, but otherwise relatively homo-
geneous, population from which independent groups have
migrated and become isolated from one another and that by
random variation in gene frequencies and the change in the
action of genes themselves disregarding for the moment the
operation of such factors as selection of various sorts new
genetic combinations of characters have appeared which, in
so far as they differ from those which have appeared in other
groups, define the differences existing between such groups.
In brief, random variation in gene frequency and the action of
mutant genes are the primary agencies responsible for the
production of physical differences between human groups. In
fact, these constitute the basic processes in the evolution of all
animal forms. But there are also other factors involved which,
though secondary in the sense that they act upon the primary
factors and influence their operation, are not less important
in their effects than the primary factors. Indeed, these sec-
ondary factors, ecological, natural, sexual and social selection,
inbreeding, outbreeding, or hybridization, and so forth, have
been unremitting in their action upon the primary factors,
but the character of that action has been very variable. The
action of these secondary factors does not require any discus-
sion here (hybridization is discussed in Chapter VIII). I wish

i Among apes of the present day, for example, one encounters animals that
are completely white skinned, others that are completely black or brown
skinned; still others are mixed or differentially colored, thus the face and
hands and feet may be black and the rest of the body white or brown. The
hair on the crown of a gorilla's head may contain almost every color that is
tp be found among men today.

40 THE GENETICAL THEORY

here to emphasize principally that in the character of the
action of the two primary factors, genetic drift and gene
mutation, we have the clear demonstration that the variation
of all human groups is a natural process which is constantly
proceeding. It is here being suggested that "race" is merely
an expression of the process of genetic change within a def-
inite ecologic area; that "race" is a dynamic, not a static, con-
dition; and that it becomes static and classifiable only when
a taxonomically minded anthropologist arbitrarily delimits
the process of change at his own time level.

In short, the so-called "races" merely represent different
kinds of temporary mixtures of genetic materials common to
all mankind. As Shelley wrote,

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Naught may endure but mutability.

Given a sufficient amount of time, all genes presumably
mutate. The frequency with which various genes have under-
gone change or mutation in human groups is at present un-
known, but when anthropologists address themselves to the
task of solving the problem of gene variability in different
human groups, important discoveries may be expected. The
immediate task of the physical anthropologist interested in
the origins of human variety should be to investigate the prob-
lem presented by that variety, not as a taxonomist, but as a
geneticist, since the variety which is loosely called "race" is a
process which can only be accurately described in terms of the
frequencies with which the individual genes occur in groups
representing adequate geographic isolates.

If "race" and "racial" variability can best be described in
terms of gene frequencies, then among the most important
tasks of the anthropologist must be to discover what roles the
primary and secondary factors play in producing that varia-
bility.

The approach to the solution of this problem is twofold.
First, through the analysis of the character of the variability
itself in definitely localized groups and, second, through the

THE GENETICAL THEORY 41

study of the effects of "race" mixture among living peoples.
Such studies as those of Fischer, Herskovits, and Davenport
and Steggerda have already shown what can be achieved by
means of the genetic approach. 2 As Dobzhansky has pointed
out, "the fundamental units of racial variability are popula-
tions and genes, not complexes of characters which connote
in the popular mind a racial distinction.'* 3 It is with such com-
plexes that physical anthropologists have been fruitlessly deal-
ing for so long. And as Dobzhansky so cogently put it in a pre-
viously quoted passage which, however, cannot be too often
repeated, the error of the pre-Mendelians lay in the fact that
"they treated as units the complexes ot characteristics of in-
dividuals, races, and species, and attempted to find rules gov-
erning the inheritance of such complexes. Mendel was first to
understand that it was the inheritance of separate traits, and
not of complexes of traits, which had to be studied. Some of
the modern students of racial variability consistently repeat
the mistakes of Mendel's predecessors." 4

In man the process of "race" formation is genetically best
understood in terms of the frequency with which certain
genes become differentiated in different groups derived from
an originally somewhat heterogeneous species population and
subsequently undergo independent development. We have
already seen that the mechanisms involved in differentiating
a single collective genotype into several separate genotypes,
and the subsequent development of a variety of phenotypes
within these genotypes, are primarily genetic drift or gene
variability and gene mutation, and secondarily, the action of
such factors as environment, natural, social, and sexual selec-
tion, inbreeding, outbreeding, and the like.

Many of the physical differences existing between the living
races of man probably originally represented the end effects
of small gene mutations fitting harmoniously into gene sys-

2 Fischer, Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim
Menschen; Herskovits, The American Negro and The Anthropometry of the
American Negro; Davenport and Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica.

s Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, 2d ed., p. 78.

42 THE GENETICAL THEORY

terns which remain relatively unaltered. Judging from the
nature of their likenesses and differences, and from the effects
of intermixture the number of genes involved would appear
to be relatively small in number, each being for the most part
independent in its action.

Quite as important as the primary factors in the production
of the genetic variety of mankind are the secondary factors,
such as migration, social and sexual selection, inbreeding, 6
outbreeding, and the like. These processes are akin to those
practiced in the production of domestic breeds of animals
from wild types, in whom generic, specific, and racial charac-
ters which, under natural conditions, in the secular period of
time concerned, would have remained stable, are rendered
markedly unstable, as in our artificially produced varieties of
cats, dogs, horses, and other domesticated animals.

The common definition of "race" is based upon an arbi-
trary and superficial selection of external characters. At its
very best it may, in genetic terms, be redefined as a group of
individuals of whom an appreciable majority, taken at a par-
ticular time level, is characterized by the possession of a cer-
tain number of genes phenotypically (that is, on the basis of
certain visible characters) selected as marking "racial" bound-
aries between them and other groups of individuals of the
same species population not characterized by so high a degree
of frequency of these particular genes.

This is, perhaps, granting the common conception of "race"

5 One form of inbreeding, namely, own mother's brother's daughter own
father's sister's son marriage, that is, cross-cousin marriage, is probably very
ancient and is still very widespread. In this connection Buxton has observed
that "herein may lie one of the explanations of the slight differences which
appear in the physique of different groups of mankind. If two groups exist
side by side, do not intermarry, but each practise within their own group some
form of consanguineous marriage, provided that it be physical and not clas-
sificatory consanguinity, each will tend to become a pure strain, but according
to the laws of chance each of these pure strains will tend to differ to a greater
or lesser degree from the other. We shall thus, in time tend to get those differ-
ences in physique between neighbouring tribes which are often so puzzling
to the physical anthropologist. Once the pure strains have become established,
so long as outside blood is not introduced into the tribe, this difference will
tend to be perpetuated." L. H. D. Buxton, "Cross Cousin Marriages; the Bio-
logical Significance/' in Rattray, Religion and Art in Ashanti, p. 343.

THE GENETICAL THEORY 43

too much credit for either significance or intelligibility, but it
should be obvious that such a definition represents a rather
fatuous kind of abstraction, a form of extrapolation for which
there can be little place in scientific thought. What, for in-
stance, does "an appreciable majority" refer to? What are the
characters which are to be exhibited by this "appreciable ma-
jority?" And upon what grounds are such characters to be
considered as significantly defining a "race?'* As Dobzhansky
points out, "the geographical distributions of the separate
genes composing a racial difference are very frequently inde-
pendent." 6 Thus, blood group distributions are independent
of skin color or cephalic index distributions, and so forth.
What aggregation, then, of gene likenesses and differences
constitutes a "race" or ethnic group?

The answer to this question awaits further research. Mean-
while, we may venture, in a very tentative manner, a defini-
tion of an ethnic group here. An ethnic group represents part
of a species population in process of undergoing genetic dif-
ferentiation; it is a group of individuals capable of hybridiz-
ing and intergrading with other such ethnic groups to produce
further genetic recombination and differentiation.

In an expanded form this definition may be written as fol-
lows: An ethnic group represents one of a number of popula-
tions comprising the single species Homo sapiens which indi-
vidually maintain their differences, physical and cultural, by
means of isolating mechanisms such as geographic and social
barriers. These differences will vary as the power of the geo-
graphic and social barriers, acting upon the original genetic
differences, vary. Where these barriers are of low power,
neighboring groups will intergrade or hybridize with one an-
other. Where these barriers are of high power, such ethnic
groups will tend to remain distinct or to replace each other
geographically or ecologically. 7

Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, 2d ed., p. 77.

7 The conception of an ethnic group was clearly stated as early as 1844 by
Alexander von Humboldt; he writes: "The distribution of mankind is ...
only a distribution into varieties, which are commonly designated by the
somewhat indefinite term races. As in the vegetable kingdom, and in the nat-

44 THE GENETICAL THEORY

An example will make this definition clear. When Ameri-
can Negroes marry and have a family, their children more
closely resemble other American Negroes, as well as Negroes
elsewhere in the world, than they do American or other
whites. This merely means that the offspring have drawn their
genes from a local group in the population in which certain
genes, say for skin color, were present that were not present in
other local groups of the American population. Now, the
manner in which such genes are distributed within a popula-
tion such as ours is determined not so much by biological fac-
tors as by social factors. This may be illustrated by means of
a homely example. If Negroes were freely permitted to marry
whites, the physical differences between Negroes and whites
would eventually be completely eliminated through the more
or less equal distribution of their genes throughout the popu-
lation. That this has not occurred to any large extent is due
principally to the erection of social barriers against such "mis-
cegenation." Such social barriers tend to keep the stocks with
white and black genes separate. In this way such barriers act
as isolating factors akin to natural geographic isolating fac-
tors, which have the same effect in maintaining the homo-
geneity of genetic characters within the isolated group.

Is it not clear, then, that the frequency distributions of cer-
tain genes within a population no matter how those genes
have arisen which serve to distinguish one ethnic group
from another for the most part represent the effects of the
action of different isolating agents upon a common stock of
genetic materials? Such agencies as natural, social, and sexual
selection result in different frequency distributions of genes

ural history of birds and fishes, a classification into many small families is
based on a surer foundation than where large sections are separated into a few
but large divisions; so it also appears to me, that in the determination of
races a preference should be given to the establishment of small families or
nations. Whether we adopt the old classification of my master, Blumenbach
... or that of Prichard ... we fail to recognize any typical sharpness of
definition, or any general or well established principle, in the division of
these groups. The extremes of form and colour are certainly separated, but
without regard to the races, which cannot be included in any of these classes."
A. von Humboldt, Cosmos, pp. 365-66*

THE GENETICAL THEORY 45

among local groups and populations. Such, from the stand-
point of the naturalist, is an ethnic group.

It will be observed that such a definition emphasizes the fact
that so-called "racial'* differences simply represent more or
less temporary expressions of variations in the relative fre-
quencies of genes in different parts of the species population
and rejects altogether the all-or-none conception of "race" as
a static immutable process of fixed differences. It denies the
unwarranted assumption that there exist any hard and fast
genetic boundaries between any groups of mankind and as-
serts the common genetic unity of all groups. Such a concep-
tion of "race" cuts across all national, linguistic, religious, and
cultural boundaries and thus asserts their essential independ-
ence of genetic factors.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

CONCERNING the origin of the living varieties of man we
can say little more than that there is every reason to
believe that a single stock gave rise to all of them. All
varieties of man belong to the same species and have the same
remote ancestry. This is a conclusion to which all the rele-
vant evidence of comparative anatomy, palaeontology, serol-
ogy, and genetics points. On genetic grounds alone it is vir-
tually impossible to conceive of the varieties of man as having
originated separately as distinct lines from different anthro-
poid ancestors. Genetically the chances against such a process
ever having occurred are, in terms of probability, of such an
order as to render that suggestion inadmissible.

Up to the present time no satisfactory classification of the
varieties of mankind has been devised, and it is greatly to be
doubted whether such classification is possible in any manner
resembling the procedure of the purely botanical or zoologi-
cal taxonomist. The reason for this is that all human varieties
are very much more mixed than are plant or animal forms,
hence there is a greater dispersion or scattering of characters,
which has the effect of producing a considerable amount of
intergrading between ethnic groups or varieties. The more or
less great variability of all ethnic groups constitutes a genetic
proof of their mixed character. From the biological stand-
point the physical differences which exist between the va-
rieties of mankind are so insignificant that when properly
evaluated they can only be described in terms of a particular
expression of an assortment of genes which are common to
mankind as a whole. At most, human varieties probably differ
from one another only in the distribution of a comparatively
small number of genes. This one may say very much more
definitely of man than one could say it of the differences ex-
hibited by any of our domesticated varieties of cats, dogs, or

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 47

horses. There are numerous varieties of cats, dogs, and horses,
many of which represent highly selected strains of animals
which have been developed as more or less homogeneous
strains and domesticated by man. Man, too, is a domesticated,
a self-domesticated, animal, but unlike our domestic animals
man exhibits varieties that are very much mixed and far from
representing homogeneous breeds. The range of variation in
all human varieties for most characters is very much more con-
siderable than that which is exhibited by any group of animals
belonging to a comparatively homogeneous breed. All the
evidence indicates that the differences between the so-called
"races" of man merely represent a random combination of
variations derived from a common source, which, by inbreed-
ing in isolated groups, have become scattered and more or less
stabilized and hereditary in a large number of the members
of such groups. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that such
selection of variations as has occurred in different groups has
been primarily restricted to physical characters. There is no
evidence among the ethnic groups of mankind that any proc-
ess of mental selection has ever been operative which has acted
differentially upon mankind to produce different types of
minds. The conception of selection for mental qualities seems
to be a peculiarly modern one, adapted to modern prejudices.
Man has bred dogs for certain temperamental qualities
useful in the hunt for many centuries dogs like the Irish
setter, for example. The Irish setter is always red-haired, but
his red hair has no connection with his temperamental quali-
ties. The Irish setter has the same kind of temperament as the
English setter, but the hair color of the English setter is white
and black. The only difference between the white, the black,
the white and black, and the red setters is in their coat color;
there is no difference at all in their mental or temperamental
qualities. No one ever asks whether there are mental and tem-
peramental differences between white, black, or brown horses
such a question would seem rather silly; but when it comes
to man, the prejudice of anyone who has ever made the state-
ment that skin color is associated with mental capacity is ag-

48 THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

cepted as gospel. For such an assumption there is about as
much justification as there would be for the assumption that
there exist substantial mental differences between the differ-
ent color varieties of setters. We know this to be false concern-
ing setters only because we have paid more unprejudiced
attention to the mental qualities of dogs than we have to those
of human beings. But those of us who have paid some atten-
tion to the character and form of the minds of peoples belong-
ing to different varieties of mankind and to different cultures
have satisfied ourselves by every scientific means at our dis-
posal that significantly or innately determined mental differ-
ences between the varieties of mankind have thus far not been
demonstrable. It may be that some such differences do exist,
but if they do, they have so far successfully eluded every at-
tempt to prove their existence. There is every reason to be-
lieve that such mental differences as we observe to exist be-
tween the different varieties of man are due principally to
factors of a cultural nature and are in no demonstrably sig-
nificant manner inseparably related to biological factors. We
shall presently refer to the nature of the mental differences
which are alleged to exist between different ethnic groups.

Whether the varieties of mankind have a common origin
or not is strictly a matter which need concern us little, in view
of the fact that structurally, in spite of superficial differences,
they are all now so very much alike. No one physical trait is
limited to any particular variety, Although different varieties
show higher frequencies in the possession of certain physical
traits than others. Such differences in the distribution of the
frequencies of physical characters in different human groups
simply mean that at some time in the past individuals of dif-
ferent heredity interbred, and in isolation continued to do so,
with the result that a new combination of characters became
more or less evenly distributed throughout the group. In this
way a new human variety or ethnic group was produced. The
fact that all human races and ethnic groups are generated in
this way is suggested not only by what we know of human
crosses today particularly the American Negro and the be-

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 49

havior of other animal groups but also by the presence in all
human beings of a large number of the characters most fre-
quently found in any one group. The fundamental genetic
kinship of all the ethnic groups of mankind would, therefore,
seem to be clear.

With respect to the nature of those physical characters in
the frequency distribution of which varieties differ from one
another, it needs to be said that not one can be classified as
either "higher" or "lower" in the "scale" of development.
Every normal physical character must be appraised as equally
valuable for the respective functions which it is called upon to
perform. Such a character, for example, as black skin proba-
bly represents a variety of the original skin color of man.
Whatever its origin, a black skin is undoubtedly a character
of adaptive value, since it enables the individual to withstand
the dangerous actinic rays of the sun. Hence, for groups living
in areas of intense sunlight a black skin would, in terms of
natural selection, in general be superior to a white skin.

By definition all members of the human species belong to
the same classificatory and evolutionary rank, and the varie-
ties of the human species, for the most part, merely represent
the expression of successful attempts at adaptation to the en-
vironment or habitat in which they have been segregated. It
is not altogether an accident that we find dark skins associated
with regions of high temperatures and intense sunlight and
light skins associated with cooler climates and moderate de-
grees of sunlight. In this same connection, compare the habi-
tat of the white bear with that of the black or the brown bear;
also, the frequency of black insects in deserts; Gloger's rule
melanin pigmentation in mammals and birds increases in
warm and humid and lighter pigmentation in arid countries.
Lukin finds that darkly pigmented races of insects are found
in countries with humid and lightly pigmented races in coun-
tries with arid climates. 1

Black skin appears to represent a character of adaptive
value which in some groups followed upon the loss of the

i Dobzhansky, "Rules of Geographic Variation," Science, XCIX (1944), 127-28.

5 o THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

body-covering of hair. Thus, most apes and monkeys which
possess an abundant hairy coat have white skin beneath the
hair. It may, therefore, be assumed that the skin of early man
was probably white; but the opposite assumption may be
equally true, that is, some groups of the earliest men may have
been black. In that case we would have to say, disregarding
for the moment all other considerations, that white-skinned
peoples have a lesser amount of pigment in their skin merely
because the shift from the birthplace of their ancestors, which
there is good reason to believe was either eastern Asia or At-
rica, to the cooler regions of Europe gradually resulted in a de-
crease in the amount of pigment in their skin, so that in the
course of time, by means of selection of genes for low pigmen-
tation, this has become considerably reduced.

To the present day, exposure to the intense sunlight will
bring about the production of an increased amount of pig-
ment in many whites, so that depending upon the degree of
exposure the skin may turn dark even black. This latter
phenomenon will occur more readily in brunets than in
blonds, simply because brunets possess a great amount of the
substances required for the production of pigment, whereas
blonds possess a much lower proportion of these substances. 2

It should be obvious that black and white skins are, in their
own ways, characters of physiological importance for the sur-
vival of the individual. In hot climates those individuals
would be most favored who possessed skins sufficiently dark
to cut off the dangerous actinic rays of the sun. In cool cli-
mates, where the rays of the sun are not so intense and the
body requires a certain amount of sunlight in order to func-
tion properly, those individuals would be at an advantage
that is to say, over a considerable period of time who were
characterized by a lesser amount of pigment in the skin.

Albinos, individuals whose skin tissues are completely de-

2 Edwards and Duntley, "The Pigments and Color of Living Skin," American
Journal of Anatomy, LXV (1939), 1-33. The darkening of white skin under
sunlight has, of course, no effect on the genes for white skin. Any permanent
change in skin color would have to come by selection of genes for more pig-
mentation.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 51

void of any pigment, suffer intensely when exposed to sun-
light. Their pigmentless tissues are incapable of taking care
of the sun's rays; in other words, they have no adaptive mecha-
nism to protect them from the rays of the sun. In so far as they
lack such a mechanism they are biologically unadapted to
meet efficiently the demands of their environment and to that
extent they are physically inferior to those of their fellows who
are so adapted. But there is no evidence of any associated men-
tal inferiority in such cases. The Negro is much better adapted
to meet the demands of the conditions of intense sunlight to
which his ancestors were born than the white man is, 8 just as
the white man is better adapted to meet the rigors of the
cooler climates of his adopted homelands. Is the one therefore
superior or inferior to the other? Is the white man superior
to the Negro because he has lost the greater part of his pig-
ment, because biologically his organism has not required its
presence under the conditions in which he has lived? And is
the Negro superior (or inferior) because he is the descendant
of ancestors who were able to survive by virtue of the selective
value of their darkly pigmented skins? Clearly, there can be
no question here of either inferiority or superiority. Both the
Negro and the white man have survived because they and
their ancestors were possessed of characters of adaptive value
which, under the respective conditions of their differing en-
vironments, enabled them to survive. Characters of adaptive
value, whatever form they may take, are always desirable,
because from the standpoint of the organism and of the group
they enable it to survive under the unremitting action of the
processes oi natural selection.

Is there any sense, then, in condemning a person because of
the color of his skin, that self-same color which enabled the
ancestral group that gave him birth to survive the rigors of
this world? Of course there is none, and there can be none
from any possible point of view. The same is true of hair and
eye color.

But, as our racists point out, it is not only the color of the

3 Lewis, The Biology of the Negro, pp. 94-96.

5* THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

skin which counts; what of the Negro's kinky hair, thick lips,
lack of general body hair, and so forth? These, surely, are all
marks of inferiority? We may well ask: "Marks of inferiority
in what sense? In the cultural or in the biological sense?" If
the statement is made from the cultural point of view there
can be no argument, for what a community or person con-
siders culturally satisfying in such connections is purely an
arbitrary matter of taste, and concerning taste it is notorious
that there can be no dispute. Even Negroes when educated
in Western cultures, as in North America, owing to the cul-
tural norms which are everywhere set before them as stand-
ards, frequently come to consider that lank hair and white
skin are to be preferred to black skin and kinky hair. 4 But if
the statement is made in the biological sense as meaning that
such Negroid physical traits are marks of biological inferior-
ity, then it can be demonstrated that such a statement stands
in complete contradiction to the facts.

The three characters in question, namely, kinky hair, thick
lips, and general lack of body hair, are not marks of inferior-
ity, but are very definitely, in the biological sense, examples
of characters which have progressed farther in development
than have the same physical structures in whites. In these very
characters the Negro is from the evolutionary standpoint
more advanced than the white, that is, if we take as our cri-
terion of advancement the fact of being furthest removed
from such conditions as are exhibited by the existing anthro-
poid apes, such as the gorilla and the chimpanzee. If some of
our racists would take the trouble to visit their local zoo and
for a moment would drop their air of superiority and take a
dispassionate look at either one of these apes, they would find
that the hair of these creatures is lank, that their lips are thin,
and that their bodies are profusely covered with hair. In these
characters the white man stands nearer to the apes than does
the Negro. Is the white man, then, for this reason, to be judged
inferior to the Negro? Surely not.

* For the preferences of Negroes in these and other respects see Brenman,
"Urban Lower-Class Negro Girls/' Psychiatry, VI (1943), 311-12.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 55

We do not know why the Negro's head hair, body hair, and
lips have developed as they have or why whites have more
nearly retained the primitive condition of these characters,
but we can be certain that biologically there is a very good
functional reason responsible in both cases which in the sys-
tem of values involved in biological judgments must be ap-
praised as equally valuable for the respective functions which
each is called upon to perform.

It has been shown that the broad nose of the Negro is
adapted to meet the requirements of air breathed at relatively
high temperatures, whereas the comparatively long, narrow
nose of the white is adapted to breathing air at relatively low
temperatures. 5 From the standpoint of aesthetics, a much
stronger case could be made out for the Negro's nose than for
that of the white. The peninsula of bone, cartilage, and soft
tissues which jut out from the face of the white, with its
stretched skin, which becomes so shiny as soon as the sweat
begins to break through its enlarged pores, is really something
of an atrocity. At least, any ape would think so. Let us try to
imagine for a moment such an outgrowth from the middle of
one's forehead instead of from the middle of one's face. In
such a case, we would regard this structure, from our present
standpoint, as an unsightly abnormality; and when a nose is
unusually long, "pendulous" (as Cyrano de Bergerac put it),
like an elephant's trunk, we tend to consider it unsightly. We
have all grown used to our noses and take them very much
for granted, but

He is foolish who supposes
That one can argue about noses.

All that one can say is that biologically the form of the Ne-
gro nose and the form of the white nose are each in their own
way adapted to perform the functions which originally called
them into existence. That being so, there can again be no
question of either superiority or inferiority. Whether such

* Thomson and Buxton, "Man's Nasal Index in Relation to Certain Cli-
matic Conditions," /. Royal Anthrop. Institute, LIII (1923), 92-1x2.

54 THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

characters are due to adaptation, to natural selection, to social
selection or to a combination of such factors is uncertain.
What is certain is that such characters do enable individuals
possessing them to meet the demands which their environ-
ments have made upon them and upon their ancestors. They
have survival value. And this may be said for all the normal
characters of all varieties of man.

There is one character of the human body which has been
cited more frequently than any other as a "proof of the in-
feriority of the Negro as compared with the white man. This
is the size of the brain. The size of the brain is usually esti-
mated from the capacity of the skull in terms of cubic centi-
meters. The material available upon which to base a discus-
sion of the value of the size of the brain as related to mental
capacity is far from satisfactory. We do not possess sufficient
series of thoroughly controlled measurements on numerically
adequate samples taken upon the brains or skulls of different
human groups. The material that is available is of such a na-
ture that it is possible for anyone who sets out with the in-
tention of proving a particular case to prove it in precisely the
terms he wishes. 6 But upon the basis of the available facts the
scientist can come to only one conclusion and that is that since
there is no demonstrable difference in the structure, gross or
microscopic", of the brains of the members of different ethnic
groups and since the variability in the size of the brain is such
that there is no demonstrable relationship between cultural
and intellectual status and brain size, there is therefore no sig-
nificance to be attached to brain size as a mark of cultural or
intellectual development. Now let us briefly consider the facts.

The cranial capacity of a number of palaeolithic Neander-
thal men was, on the average, 1,625 c - c - What an extraordi-
nary situation! Primitive Neanderthal man, who lived more
than 50,000 years ago, had a larger brain than the average
white man of today. Strange that this elementary fact has been

For an excellent discussion of this subject see Lewis, The Biology of the
Negro, pp. 77-Si.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 55

so consistently overlooked. Are we to assume, then, that these
Neanderthal men were culturally and intellectually superior
to the average modern white man? The Negro has an average
cranial capacity of 1400 c.c., 50 c.c. less than the white, whereas
the modern white has a cranial capacity which is lower than
that of these Neanderthal men by 200 c.c. Are we to draw the
conclusion from these facts, then, that the modern white is
intellectually as much inferior to Neanderthal man as the
Negro is to the white? We believe not.

We know that Neanderthal man was hardly as highly de-
veloped culturally as the modern white or Negro. But that
he possessed the same capacities for cultural and intellectual
development as the modern white or Negro seems highly
probable. Neanderthal man was neither inferior nor superior
to modern man because of his large brain he was inferior
culturally to modern man for the simple reason that the op-
portunities for cultural development which were open to him
were strictly limited. His brain had nothing whatever to do
with the comparatively undeveloped state of his culture, just
as the brain of the vast majority of modern white men has
little to do with the state of development of the Western world
today. The brain is essentially the organ which coordinates
nervous activities, and to a very large extent it performs that
coordination according to the educative pattern which is of-
fered to it. That pattern is always culturally determined and
conditioned. Therefore, it depends to a very considerable
extent upon the sort of cultural experiencd which an individ-
ual has been exposed to and caused to coordinate within his
nervous system, whether he is capable of functioning at the
necessary level or not.

The material bases of those structures which are eventually
organized to function as mind are to a large extent inherited
precisely as are all other structures of the body. This is an as-
sumption, but it seems a perfectly legitimate one to make.
The qualification "to a large extent" is introduced for the
reason that in man the nervous system continues to develop
long after birth and is therefore appreciably influenced by the

56 THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

experience of the individual. 7 There is every reason to believe,
as Edinger has pointed out, ''that in certain parts of the nerv-
ous mechanism new connections can always be established
through education." 8 And as Ranson put it, "the neurons
which make up the nervous system of an adult man are there-
fore arranged in a system the larger outlines of which follow
an hereditary pattern, but many of the details of which have
been shaped by the experiences of the individual/ 1 9 It is
evident that experience must play a considerable role in the
development of the structure and functioning relations of the
nervous system, and it is also clear that that aspect of the func-
tioning of the body or nervous system which we know as mind
is dependent upon the interaction of several factors; these are,
primarily: the inherited, incompletely developed, structure
of the nervous system; and the character of the external devel-
oping influences.

There can be no doubt that the material bases of mind are
inherited in much the same manner as are the other structures
of the body. While the organization of the structures of the
body is appreciably influenced by external factors, the result-
ing effects appear to be incomparably fewer and less complex
than are those which are capable of being produced through
the organization of those nervous structures which function as
mind. 10

Now, while it is possible though it has never been dem-
onstrated that in different ethnic groups the nervous system
differs in some of its structural characters, it is certain that if
such differences exist, they are of the most insignificant kind.
The measurable mental characters of different human groups
strongly suggest that there are between such groups few, if
any, mental differences which can be attributed to the charac-

7 Kennard and Fulton, "Age and Reorganization of Central Nervous System,"
Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital, IX (1942), 594-606.

8 Edinger, Vorlesungen uber den Bau der nervosen Zentralorgane des
Menschen und der Tiere.

9 Ranson, The Anatomy of the Nervous System, 7th ed. p. 41.

IP It should be clearly understood that mind is merely one form of the
functioning body and that the "body-mind" dichotomy is a purely arbitrary
and unreal one.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 57

ters of the nervous system alone. Furthermore, the mental dif-
ferences which exist between human groups would appear to
be much less considerable than those found to exist between
individuals of the same group. In the light of our present
knowledge, the evidence shows that within the limits of the
normal, brain weight, cranial capacity, head size, or the gross
structure and form of the brain bear no relation whatever
to the characters of the mind, as between individuals of the
same or different ethnic groups. 11 As Professor C. Judson Her-
rick has remarked, "mental capacity cannot be measured in
avoirdupois ounces on the scales." Nor is there necessarily any
association between certain ethnic group characters and cer-
tain kinds of mentality. Since mental functions are so largely
dependent upon experience, upon cultural conditions, it is
impossible to make any inferences as to the equivalence or
nonequivalence of mental potentialities as between ethnic
groups or peoples among whom the cultural conditions are
not strictly comparable. In short, no statement concerning
the mentality of an individual or a group is of any value un-
less it is accompanied by a specification of the conditions of
the cultural environment in which that mentality has devel-
oped. No discussion of "racial" mental characters can be coun-
tenanced which neglects full consideration of the associated
cultural variables. For it is evident that it is precisely these
cultural variables that play the most significant part in pro-
ducing mental differences between groups. As I have already
indicated, it is more than probable that genetically deter-

11 On these matters see: Pearson, "Relationship of Intelligence to Size and
Shape of the Heart and Other Mental and Physical Characters," Biometrika,
V (1906), 105-46; Pearl, "On the Correlation between Intelligence and the
Size of the Head," /. Comp. Neur. and PsychoL, XVI (1906), 189-99; Mul> -
dock and Sullivan, "A Contribution to the Study of Mental and Physical
Measurements in Normal Children," Amer. Physical Education Review,
XXVIII (1923), 209-15, 278-88, 328; Reid and Mulligan, "Relation of Cranial
Capacity to Intelligence," J. Royal Anthrop. Inst., LI II (1923), 322-32; Pater-
son, Physique and Intellect, 1930; Bonin, "On the Size of Man's Brain, as Indi-
cated by Skull Capacity," /. Comp. Neural., LIX (1934), 1-28; Pickering,
"Correlation of Brain and Head Measurements and Relation of Brain Shape
and Size of the Head." Amer. J. Physical Anthrop., XV (1931), 1-52; Levin,
"Racial and 'Inferiority* Characters in the Human Brain," Amer. /. Physical
Anthrop., XXII (1937), 345-80.

58 THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

mined mental differences do exist between individuals of the
same and of different ethnic groups, but there is absolutely no
evidence that significant mental differences which may be de-
termined by the genetic characters of the nervous system exist
between any two ethnic groups. As we have already said, ap-
parently it is principally, if not entirely, due to differences in
cultural experience that individuals and groups differ from
one another culturally, and it is for this reason that, where the
cultural experience has appreciably differed, cultural achieve-
ment is an exceedingly poor measure of the mental value,
genetically speaking, of an individual or of a group. For all
practical purposes, therefore, and until evidence to the con-
trary shall be forthcoming, we can safely take cultural achieve-
ment to represent the expression chiefly of cultural experi-
ence, not of biological potentiality.

Professor Otto Klineberg, our leading authority in the field
of racial and ethnic psychology, after considering the evidence
from every standpoint, offers the following important conclu-
sion: "We may state," he writes, "with some degree of assur-
ance that in all probability the range of inherited capacities
in two different ethnic groups is just about identical." 12

The environmental plasticity of mental characters is so
great that when the evidence is all in it will almost certainly
show that the average differences between ethnic groups will
be smaller than the amplitude of the differences to be found
within each of the ethnic groups themselves.

The brain does not secrete cultural or intellectual power
in the same way that the liver secretes bile. One is not born
with the ability to think brilliantly. Such an ability can be
brought about only by exposure of the brain and nervous sys-
tem to, and education in, the proper conditions.

When Julius Caesar landed upon the shores of Britain in
A. D. 52 he found the Britons at an Iron Age level of cultural
development. Within one hundred years after the landing of
Caesar these selfsame savage Britons were well on the way

12 Klineberg, "Mental Testing of Racial and National Groups," in Scientific
4spects of the Race Problem, p. 284.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 59

toward the development of a civilization culminating in that
great cultural efflorescence which has been called the Greece
of the modern world. Had Caesar not opened up to the Brit-
ons the opportunities for cultural development when he did,
the development of the Britons would have been greatly de-
layed, and they might even have been wiped out altogether by
invading hordes. At the time when Caesar set foot in Britain
the African Negro kingdoms and their peoples were from the
cultural standpoint in an incomparably more advanced state
of development than the Britons, upon whom they might well
have looked as a "primitive" people. Africa had long been in
contact with peoples who had acted upon them as so many
cultural fertilizing agents. The Britons had been isolated from
the main course of such contacts until the time of Caesar, but
as soon as he made such contacts available to them develop-
ment followed with great rapidity.

Were the brains of the Britons up to the time of Caesar's
arrival made of such inferior stuff that they could only assume
efficient qualities by the injection of new genes? Clearly, genes
and brain had nothing to do with the matter; on the other
hand, cultural stimulation had everything to do with the de-
velopment which followed upon the Roman conquest.

The English are today the most notoriously unmusical
people of our age. Yet in Elizabethan times they were the
most musical people in Europe. What has happened? Has the
"musical part" of the English brain atrophied? Of course not.
The cultural and economic development of the English has
simply led in a direction away from such interests to other
pursuits. Brain has nothing to do with the matter; culture
everything.

In short, it is culture which makes "brains"; not brains cul-
ture. If this were not so, then the Kaffirs and Amaxosa of
Africa, who have few cultural opportunities but more brains
by size than whites (Kaffirs 1,540 c.c. and Amaxosa 1,570 c.c.)
would be culturally and intellectually superior to whites, as
would the Japanese, 1,485 c.c.; the Eskimos, 1,535 c ' c - an d
the Polynesians, 1,500 c.c. If we are to hold that the Negro is

60 THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS

mentally inferior to the white because his brain has a volume
of 50 c.c. less than that of the white, then by the same token
we must hold that Kaffirs, Amaxosa, Japanese, and many
other peoples are superior to whites. This we have reason to
believe is untrue. There is no evidence that any people is
mentally either superior or inferior to any other people in any
way whatever. All that we know is that there exist considera-
ble cultural differences between peoples and that these cul-
tural differences are readily to be explained upon purely his-
torical grounds, not upon any biological ones.

Differences in brain size have about as much relation to in-
telligence and cultural achievement as differences in body
size; that is to say, within the limits of normal variation ab-
solutely none, either between groups of individuals or be-
tween individuals of the same group. In short, the concept of
"race" which holds that the physical differences between peo-
ples are reflections of underlying significant mental differ-
ences is a concept which, on the existing evidence, cannot be
scientifically substantiated. It is a myth and a delusion.

The average person in our society observes that certain
other persons belonging to different ethnic groups possess
physical and mental traits which differ from his own. He con-
cludes that these physical and mental traits are somehow
linked together, that these traits are inborn, and that they are
immutable. 13 Vague notions about a unilinear evolution
"from monkey to man" encourage him to believe that such
"races" are "lower" in the "scale" of evolution than is the
group to which he belongs. From some such starting point as
Pithecanthropus erectus he envisages a continuous progres-
sion upward, culminating in the development of his own
"race" or group. Between Pithecanthropus and himself stand,
in an intermediate position, all the other peoples of mankind.
"Race" is a very definite entity to him, and all the intellectual

is "We are apt to construct ideal local types which are based on our every-
day experience, abstracted from a combination of forms that are most fre-
quently seen in a given locality, and we forget that there are numerous in-
dividuals for whom this description does not hold true." Boas, "Race and
Progress/' Science, LXXIV (1931), i.

THE BIOLOGICAL FACTS 61

supports for his conception of it are ready at hand; newspa-
pers, periodicals, books, the radio, publicists, politicians, and
others all tell him much the same story. The significance of
"race" for him emotionally is, as we shall soon see, of consid-
erable importance. Therefore "race'* exists. Such is the con-
ception of "race" with which we have to reckon. We have seen
that there are no scientific grounds for this conception.

"RACE" AND SOCIETY

No ACTIVITY of man, whether it be the making of a book,
the contraction of a muscle, the manufacture of a brick,
the expression of an idea, or the writing of a work such
as this, can be fully understood without a knowledge of the
history of that activity in so far as it has been socially deter-
mined. For, obviously, any neglect to take into consideration
the relations of the social framework can only lead to a defec-
tive understanding of such events. It should be clear that man
develops in and through an environment that is social as well
as physical. There is, perhaps, no subject and no event of
which this is more conspicuously true than "race." I say
"event/* because in a very definite sense it would be prefera-
ble to speak of "race" as an "event" rather than as a word.
Apart from the cells of a dead lexicographer's brain or the
taxonomist's judgment, "race" in reality hardly ever func-
tions as a word, but almost always as an event. In our society
and it is within the universe of our society that I am speak-
ing "race'- is not merely a word which one utters but also
an event which one experiences. The word itself merely repre-
sents a series of sounds which usually serve as a stimulus to set
in motion a host of feelings and thoughts which, together,
form an emotional experience; this, for most people, is what
"race" is. 1 It seems to be of the greatest importance that this
fact be clearly understood, and in this chapter an attempt will
be made, among other things, to inquire into the develop-
ment of those psychological factors which tend to make this
event possible; that such psychological factors exist is indis-
putably clear, but these factors are not as well known as they
deserve to be.

i For an interesting discussion of the meaning of the word along these lines
see Hayakawa, "Race and Words," Common Sense, XII (1943), 231-35.

"RACE" AND SOCIETY 63

"Race," in our society, is not a term which clearly and dis-
passionately defines certain real conditions which can be dem-
onstrated to exist, but, as I have already said, the word acts
more as a stimulus which touches off a series of emotional
changes that usually bear as much relation to the facts as bees
do to bonnets. Feelings and thoughts concerning such a con-
cept as "race" are real enough, and so, it may be pointed out,
are feelings and thoughts concerning the existence of uni-
corns, pixies, goblins, ghosts, satyrs, and Aryans. Endowing a
feeling or a thought about something with a name and thereby
imputing to that something a real existence is one of the oldest
occupations of mankind. Man forces on nature the limitations
of his own mind and identifies his view of reality with reality
itself. Pixies, ghosts, satyrs, and Aryans, and the popular con-
ception of "race" represent real enough notions, but they
have their origin in erroneous interpretations of simple facts.
Error, imagination, emotion, and rationalization are among
the chief components of these notions. Facts, it should always
be remembered, do not speak for themselves, but always
through an interpreter. The word "fact" (facere) originally
meant a thing made; we still make our own "facts," but fail
to realize how much of ourselves we put into them.

It is not my purpose here to show that concepts denoted by
such terms as "ghost" or "race" do not, in the sense in which
they are commonly used and understood, correspond to any-
thing scientifically demonstrable as having a real existence.
Madame de Stael once remarked, "I do not believe in ghosts,
but I am afraid of them." Intellectually convinced of the non-
existence of ghosts, Madame de Stael nonetheless reacted emo-
tionally to the notion of ghosts for all the world as if they had
a real existence. Most of us are familiar with this kind of re-
action, and it is evident that in her early childhood Madame
de Stael must have been emotionally conditioned in relation
to the idea of the existence of ghosts to such an extent that as
an adult she was quite unable to throw off the effects of that
conditioning. This is what occurs in the case of most human
beings with regard to "race." As Mussolini put it in his pre-

64 "RACE" AND SOCIETY

racist days, "race is a feeling, not a reality/' 2 There can be
little doubt of the fact that in many parts of the world most
children are early emotionally conditioned to a belief in the
existence of "race" differences. 8 In many parts of Europe, for
example, where the larger number of troubles of State and
person have traditionally been attributed to the Jews, such
attributions can hardly have failed to escape the attention of
most children. Indeed, they usually become aware very early
that hostility tow r ard Jews is a socially sanctioned, even re-
quired, form of behavior. Such children would grow up to
accept the existence of imputed "race" differences as real and
would act upon such beliefs almost automatically. But just as
Madame de Stael became intellectually convinced that ghosts
do not exist in spite of the acknowledged strength of the emo-
tion attached to the idea, so, too, it is quite possible to produce
an intellectual appreciation of the nature of their error among
those who have been emotionally conditioned to accept the
mythology of "race" as real. Indeed, nearly all of us have been
so emotionally conditioned, and many of us have been more
or less able to emancipate ourselves from the effects of such
conditioning by becoming acquainted with the facts relating
to these matters. Hence, one of the first requirements neces-
sary for the production in the individual of an intelligent
understanding of "race" problems must be the existence of a
readily available body of scientific facts relating to every as-
pect of the "race" problem for use in the education or reedu-
cation of the individual. Moreover, these facts must be used,
and they must be made available in a form for use. Science and
knowledge are meaningless unless they can be applied in a
practical way to increase human happiness. 4 The dispassionate
and scientific collection and analysis of facts is of the first im-
portance, but the end of such activities should not rest with
their publication in learned journals. The ultimate purpose
of these scientific activities must be recognized as having been

2 Mussolini, quoted by Rene" Fulop-Miller, Leaders, Dreamers and Rebels,
p. 422.

On this subject see Lasker, Race Attitudes in Children.
* See Montagu, How to Find Happiness and Keep It.

"RACE" AND SOCIETY 65

defeated unless the most pertinent results are disseminated in
such a manner as to increase the understanding of these mat-
ters in every human being.

I am not among those who consider that all who at present
appear to be hopelessly confused upon the subject of "race"
are beyond redemption. This seems to be an altogether gra-
tuitous assumption. I believe that methods can be developed
by means of which many persons who now harbor myths and
delusions concerning "race" may be reached and redeemed.
Through the press, periodicals, popular lectures, books, the
film, the radio, the Church, and many similar agencies mil-
lions of misguided individuals can have the truth made avail-
able to them.

But far more important than these is the growing genera-
tion. It is through the lower and upper grade schools that the
most significant work can be done in clarifying the minds of
individuals concerning the facts relating to the varieties of
man and in educating them in the proper mental attitudes. 8
Let us teach geography, but instead of presenting the subject
in the usual arid manner let us humanize its teaching and
furnish its field with the living peoples who inhabit the earth.
Let us teach our children what we know about the peoples of
the earth and about their respective values for one another
and for civilization as a whole. Let us emphasize their like-
nesses and create interest in their differences, differences
which enrich the common heritage of humanity and make
the world the richly variegated experience it can be. Let us
teach appreciation of the other person's point of view, the
more so since if it is unlike our own it will require more sym-
pathetic appreciation if it is to be understood. Relations be-
tween other human beings and ourselves form the most im-
portant of all the experiences and situations of our lives.
Nevertheless, in our society human beings are permitted to
enter into such relations without being equipped with the
most elementary understanding of what they mean. No at-
tempt is made to supply them with the facts relating to "race"

See Appendix A; also Powdermaker, Probing Our Prejudices.

66 "RACE" AND SOCIETY

as demonstrated by science, on the contrary they are supplied
with the kind of information which makes fertile ground for
the development of "race" prejudices. 6

Prejudices early acquired are notoriously difficult to eradi-
cate. What must be done is to see to it that instead of such
prejudices the growing personalities in our schools are taught
the facts which anthropological science has made available.
Our children must be taught that a certain form of nose or a
certain skin color is in the physical scale of values neither bet-
ter nor worse than any other; that the accents of different peo-
ple, their manners, their facial appearance, their expression
like the clothes they wear are not necessarily altogether bio-
logically determined, that they are, indeed, to a much larger
extent than is customarily supposed determined by cultural
factors. They must be taught that there is nothing in such
characters which is inherently objectionable. For it should be
obvious that, though some of us may not be particularly at-
tracted to people who exhibit a certain type of physiognomy,
the cause of our dislike lies, not in their physiognomy, but in
the values, the culturally determined ideas, in our own minds
which have taught us to react in this way to the perception of
such physiognomies. The causes of such dislikes must be
looked for, in the cultura background of one's intellectual
being, not in the shape of the nose or the color of the skin of
our neighbors. Physical differences are merely the pegs upon
which culturally generated hostilities are made to hang, end-
ing with the smug and empty conviction that a superior
"race" is one that you look like and an inferior "race" is one
that you don't look like. Here, then, is a most important field
in which a great and valuable pioneer work remains to be
done. Academic discussions will not carry us very far. We
must be willing to roll up our sleeves and set to work on this
immense, virtually untilled field. 7

See Baker, "Do We Teach Racial Intolerance?" Historical Outlook, XXIV
(iQSS). 86-89.

t The type of teaching which can be carried out in the schools is very effi-
ciently discussed and exemplified in the Teaching Biologist, IX (1939), 17-47.
See Appendix A for an account of the kind of teaching most needed in our

"RACE" AND SOCIETY 67

Community projects for the teaching of the sympathetic
understanding of other peoples and ethnic groups, such as
that inaugurated in 1939 m Springfield, Massachusetts, which
is being successfully carried on at the present time, have dem-
onstrated how successfully "race" prejudice can be overcome.
Treated like any other disease "race" prejudice can be pre-
vented where it has not yet raised its head and eliminated
where it has. Each community should make itself responsible
for ridding itself of a disease which has for too long threatened
its body politic, by seeing to it that the community as a whole
thinks and acts, in its own best interests, in the light of the
soundest modern knowledge and the best human practice. 8
Where there is a desire for just action it will be achieved, and
where there is more than a hope of clarity, confusion will
yield. In passing, it may be noted here that where clear think-
ing upon this subject might have been expected to be the rule
in the social sciences the confusion is often quite as great
as it is elsewhere. 9

One of the first points to be grasped before much progress
in this subject can be made is that as far as human beings and
as far as society and social development are concerned "race"
is not a biological problem at all; furthermore, that it does
not even present any socially relevant biological problems.
"Race" is a term for a problem which is created by special
types of social conditions and by such types of special condi-
tions alone. In terms of social relations so-called "race prob-
lems" are, in the modern world, essentially of the nature of
caste problems.

"RACE" AND CASTE

We must recognize the fact that in our own society the "race
problem" is essentially a problem of social relations and that
it is, therefore, fundamentally a social problem.

schools as successfully practiced in the community schools of Springfield,
Massachusetts

s HOW this has been done at Springfield, Massachusetts, is set out in some
detail in Appendix A.

Berry, "The Concept of Race in Sociology Textbooks," Social Forces, XVIII
(1940), 411-17.

68 "RACE" AND SOCIETY

In the social context of America, to take an example with
which we are all familiar, what is usually referred to as a
"race" or "racial" group, in reality constitutes a caste. Thus,
Negroes, Jews, Japanese, and Indians are in actual practice
treated by dominant white groups as if they were members
of specific castes.

A caste may be defined as a specific, socially limited-status
group. The function of the limiting factors of caste are, in
effect, primarily to create barriers against sexual relations be-
tween members of the hegemonic caste and those of the "lower
castes/' and, secondarily, to regulate the social status, privi-
leges, and social mobility of the members of the "lower
castes."

A "class" differs from a "caste" in that a greater degree of
social mobility is, in all respects, permitted between the mem-
bers of the upper and the lower social classes than is permitted
between castes. The caste is static, the class dynamic.

When we speak of the "race problem in America," what we
really mean is the caste system and the problems which that
caste system creates in America. 10 To recognize this fact is to
effect a clarification and a change in conceptual approach to
a problem upon which, perhaps more than any other in our
time, clear thinking and accurate concepts are an urgent nec-
essity.

It has recently been suggested that "the term race should be
discarded entirely in the cultural reference, and the more ap-
propriate term caste employed in its stead." u With this view
I am in entire agreement. There can be no cultural "races";
there can only be cultural castes. But when it is added that
"the term race should be retained in its biologic context as

10 The same is true for most other areas of the world: see Beaglehole, "Race,
Caste and Class," Journal of the Polynesian Society, LXII (1943), 1-11: Hum-
phrey, "American Race and Caste," Psychiatry, IV (1941), 159-60; Montagu,
"Race, Caste and Scientific Method/' Psychiatry, IV (1941), 337-38; Dollard,
Caste and Class in a Southern Town; Warner and Davis, "A Comparative Study
of American Caste," in Thompson (editor), Race Relations and the Race Prob-
lem, pp. 219-45; Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, Deep South; a Social Anthropo-
logical Study of Caste and Class.

11 Humphrey, "American Race and Caste," Psychiatry, IV (1941), 159-60.

"RACE" AND SOCIETY 69

a taxonomic category for the delineation of types of man-
kind," we must, as the lawyers say, put in a demurrer, for the
error committed here is that of all those who assume that be-
cause a word or a concept exists there must necessarily be a
reality to which that word or concept corresponds. It is the
error of assuming that while the term "race" has no validity
as a sociological concept, it does possess an established valid-
ity as a biological concept with reference to the human spe-
cies.

Let us consider a little further what the meaning of this
term, in the social sense, really is. In countries such as Eng-
land, France, Germany, and Spain, in which class distinctions
are well marked and there exist no significantly large ethnic
groups other than the dominant national population, "race"
prejudice is replaced by class prejudice. In fact, there is
scarcely any difference between the two phenomena. Almost
every condition found in the one is to be found in the other,
even down to the imputed biological differences. The upper
classes make much of "breeding," of "good family" or "birth"
or "ancestry," and will not, generally, marry out of their class
or "quality." To marry out of one's class is to lose caste, not
only socially but also biologically, for such a person's children
can belong only to the class of the "inferior" parent. There
are, of course, exceptions, but this is the rule. This rule is
strictly applied to women, but hardly at all to men. The
upper-class male elevates the woman he chooses to marry to
his own class; the lower-class male reduces his wife and chil-
dren to his own class. The biology and stratification of the
classes is patrilineally determined, that is to say, they operate
through and in favor of the male line. This is not the case
where ethnic crossing is concerned, and it constitutes one of
the few differences between the workings of class and "race"
prejudice. Thus, for example, should an upper-class white
male marry a Negroid female, the offspring will, in the United
States at least, belong to the class of the mother, not to that
of the father's family.

Among the strongest supporters of the view that the upper

yo "RACE" AND SOCIETY

classes are not only socially but biologically superior to the
lower classes are those who have themselves recently migrated
into the ranks of the upper classes from the ranks of the lower
classes. Success in life is held to be not so much a matter of
social opportunity as of biological quality. Such views deter-
mine the attitudes of members of the upper classes toward
those of the lower classes, and vice versa.

It should be fairly evident that in societies in which there
is an extreme division of men into classes whose interests are
necessarily opposed and in which the means of earning a liv-
ing, the economic system, is organized upon an extremely
competitive basis, there will be abundant opportunities for
class or "race" antagonisms. This is a matter with which we
shall deal in the next chapter.

The point I wish to bring out here is that "race" prejudice
is merely a special case of class prejudice, a prejudice that will
be developed, under certain conditions, where different eth-
nic groups are thrown together in significant numbers. In the
absence of such conditions or in the absence of a variety of
ethnic groups the prejudices of the upper classes against all
members of the lower classes and their conduct toward the
members of such classes will, in almost every respect, take the
form which is usually associated with "race" prejudice. Wher-
ever classes exist, there exists class prejudice. It is significant
that in a classless society, such as is comprised by the Soviet
republics, "race" prejudice is nonexistent. In socially strati-
fied class societies the shift from class prejudice to "race" pre-
judice is very easily achieved and, in fact, amounts to little
more than a change of names, for the "race" against which
prejudice is now especially focussed is but another class or
caste, even though it may be regarded as something substan-
tially different.

In the case of the American Negro it is necessary to under-
stand that the original difference in his status was one ol caste,
not of biology. It was only later that the alleged biological
differences were attached to the difference in caste. An African
or American Negro would be enslaved in virtue of the fact
that he belonged to the slave class, not biologically, but so-

"RACE" AND SOCIETY 71

cially. American Indians were not enslaved, because they had
established themselves as a class which did not adapt itself to
slavery. White men, however, could be bought and sold if they
belonged to the class born to servitude, the lowest class. The
status of a Negro could be recognized at once by the color of
his skin, which was a great convenience, but nothing more
than that. It was only afterward that the obvious physical dif-
ference was utilized to reenforce the strength of the arguments
in favor of the necessity of continuing the depressed social
status of the Negro.

Thus, in the case of peoples showing any physical differ-
ences which distinguished them from the dominant class or
caste, the mechanism of exclusion works both ways: one may
oppose such peoples on the ground of their social inferiority,
and one may oppose them on the ground of their biological
inferiority, the physical differences being taken to signify the
latter. One may then proceed to adopt the view that such peo-
ples are socially inferior because they are physically or biologi-
cally inferior, and since the physical or biological difference is
constant, the social difference will always remain so. Thus,
one may not only have one's cake and cut it into thin slices,
but eat it too.

Professors Hogben, Haddon, Huxley, and myself 12 enter-
tain no doubts as to the present meaninglessness of the older
anthropological conception of "race." We do not consider
that any of the existing concepts of "race" correspond to any
reality whatever; but we do consider that the persistence of
the term and of the concept has been responsible for much
confused thinking and, what is worse, has rendered possible
much confused and confusing action resulting in the most
tragic consequences for millions of human beings. It is for
these reasons that a number of us, as biologists, have recently
urged that the term "race" be altogether dropped from the

12 Hogben, "The Concept of Race," in his Genetic Principles in Medicine
and Social Science/' pp. 122-44; Huxley and Haddon, We Europeans; Huxley,
"The Concept of Race," in Man Stands Alone, pp. 106-26; Montagu "The
Concept of Race in the Light of Genetics," Journal of Heredity, XXXII (1941),
243-47; "The Genetical Theory of Race and Anthropological Method," Amer-
ican Anthropologist, XLIV (1942), 369-75; see also Barzun, Race; a Study in
Modern Superstition.

73 "RACE" AND SOCIETY

vocabulary. If we do no more than relegate this term to the
oblivion to which it properly belongs, this would in itself
serve as a contribution toward clear thinking, 13 for what is
implied in the anthropological and popular conceptions of
"race" represents an egregious and dangerous congeries of
errors.

Huxley has suggested that "it would be highly desirable if
we could banish the question-begging term 'race' from all dis-
cussions of human affairs and substitute the noncommital
phrase 'ethnic group.' That would be a first step towards ra-
tional consideration of the problem at issue/' 14

Since Huxley does not venture a definition of an "ethnic
group/' the definition I have already proposed may be re-
peated: An ethnic group represents one of a number of popu-
lations, which together comprise the species Homo sapiens,
but individually maintain their differences, physical and cul-
tural, by means of isolating mechanisms such as geographic
and social barriers. These differences will vary as the power of
the geographic and social ecologic barriers vary. Where
these barriers are of low power, neighboring ethnic groups
will intergrade or hybridize with one another. Where these
barriers are of high power, such ethnic groups will tend to
remain distinct from each other or replace each other geo-
graphically or ecologically.

From this definition or description of an ethnic group it
will be seen that the problem of ethnic variation is really an
ecological problem and may ultimately, to a considerable ex-
tent, be resolved to the problem of the physical mobility of
populations and the consequences resulting therefrom. Thus,
the problem of ethnic variation falls very definitely within
the purview of the student of the social life of man.

One of the important advantages of the term ethnic group 13
is that it eliminates all question-begging emphases on physi-

13 Precisely as was done in the case of the term "instinct," the banishment of
which from psychological thought has had a most beneficial effect upon the
development of the science of psychology.

i* Huxley, "The Concept of Race," in Man Stands Alone, p. 126.

i The term "ethnic" is derived from the Greek ffoov ethnos, meaning a

"RACE" AND SOCIETY 73

cal factors or differences and leaves that question completely
open, while the emphasis is now shifted to the fact though
it is not restricted to it that man is predominantly a cultural
creature. The change in emphasis seems to me highly desira-
ble. It does not exclude the consideration of the possible sig-
nificance of physical characters, but it leaves the question of
the latter open for further dispassionate analysis, omitting any
suggestion that the physical factors are determined, fixed, or
definable or that they are in any way connected with mental
or cultural factors. This is not simply to replace one term by
another, but represents a definite shift in emphasis based
upon a fundamental difference in point of view. It is the point
of view of the person who is anxious to avoid the consequences
of thinking in "fuzzy" terms.

If, then, we can replace the outmoded concept of "race" by
the concept of the ethnic group, we shall have secured a real
clarification and change in conceptual approach to a problem
whose importance requires no emphasis here. The sociologist
will then be able to proceed with the study of the problem of
caste, intra- and inter-socially, with the clear consciousness of
the fact that, as far as he is concerned the problem is entirely
a social problem and that for him, at any rate, it has no bio-
logical relevance at all, but that, in so far as it is necessary for
him to take cognizance of the biological evidence, the old
concept of "race" has no more scientific justification for use in
the field of human biology than it has in the field of human
sociology.

In short, the term "race" should be discarded entirely in
the cultural reference, and the more appropriate term "caste"
should be employed in its stead; while the term "race 11 should
be replaced by the term "ethnic group" in the biologic or
ecologic context and should not be used in any human con-
text whatever.

number of people living together, a company, a body of men. In the Iliad
Homer variously uses the word to mean a band of comrades, a tribe, a group.
Pindar uses it in the sense of a family, tribe, nation, or people.

6

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

THE PROBLEM of the origin and development of different
physical types is part of the larger problem of discover-
ing how we all came to be the way we are; that, too, is
a social problem, and only arbitrarily and in a very limited
technical sense is it a biological problem. Man is outstand-
ingly the one animal species in which "biological" develop-
ment has, from the very earliest times, been substantially in-
fluenced by the operation of social factors and this, ever
increasingly, continues to be the case. The biological devel-
opment of man cannot be considered apart from his social
development, for man is a domesticated, a self-domesticated,
animal, 1 and domestication is a social or cultural process by
means of which biological changes are produced in animals.
Such changes, to a certain extent, represent the socially pre-
ferred expression of genetic rearrangements of characters
common to the whole of mankind. The chief agencies in the
production of such changes are social, but the scientific study
of such social agencies has hardly yet been attempted. Thus
far, the emphasis has for the most part been upon the biologi-
cal aspect of such changes, while there has been an almost
complete failure to recognize their socially induced origin.

The biological aspects of the subject are important, but
only in so far as they render possible an understanding of the

i Upon this important subject, in which far too little original work has yet
been done, see the following: Hahn, Die Haustiere; Klatt, "Mendelismus,
Domestikation und Kraniologie," Archiv. /. Anthrop., N.F., XVIII (1921),
225-50; Friedenthal, "Die Sonderstellung des Menschen in der Natur," in
Wege zum Wissen, Vol. VIII; Fischer, "Rasse und Rassenentstehung beim
Menschen," Wege zum Wissen, LXII, 1-137; Laufer, "Methods in the Study of
Domestications," Scientific Monthly, XXV (1927), 251-55; Herskovits, "Social
Selection and the Formation of Human Types," Human Biology, I (1929), 250-
62; Renard, Life and Work in Prehistoric Times; Boas, The Mind of Primitive
Man, pp. 74-98; Boas (editor), General Anthropology, p. 108; Fortuyn, "The
Origin of Human Races," Science, XC (1939), 352-53; Montagu, "The Socio-
Biology of Man/* Scientific Monthly, L (1940), 483-90.

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 75

physiological and genetic mechanisms underlying the actual
process of change. R. A. Fisher has remarked: "While genetic
knowledge is essential for the clarity it introduces into the
subject, the causes of the evolutionary changes in progress
can only be resolved by an appeal to sociological, and even
historical facts. These should at least be sufficiently available
to reveal the more powerful agencies at work in the modifica-
tion of mankind." 2 When the mechanism of these physio-
logical and genetic changes is understood, it is then fully
realized that "race" is a term which refers to a process repre-
senting a series of genetically active temporary conditions,
always in process of change. It then becomes clear that the
stage at which one catches this process depends upon the seg-
ment of time which one arbitrarily delimits from the space-
time continuum in which the process is occurring. Neither
"races" of men nor "races" of lower animals are immutable;
they seem to become so, but then only conceptually, when an
anthropologist or a taxonomist follows the traditional prac-
tice of pinning his specimens down for study and classifica-
tion. It is erroneous to conceive of any animal group, particu-
larly human groups, as static and immutable. It is an error
to do so in the case of man in particular, because the facts of
prehistory and those of more recent times indicate that new
"races" of man have been and are being synthesized very rap-
idly. In this process social factors play a very important role.
Upon recognizing this fact we must further recognize that in
our own society the problem of "race" is essentially a problem
of caste and class relations and that it is, of course, funda-
mentally a social problem.

In our own society explanations of the "race" problem have
been offered in terms of economic forces, social stratification,
biological differences, or all three. Such explanations have
never been altogether convincing. The causes motivating hu-
man behavior are complex, and human behavior is hardly
ever to be explained in terms of single processes, which in
themselves are complicated enough, such as the economic,

2 Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, p. 174.

76 BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

the biological, or the purely sociological. In all cases, in order
to understand the nature of any event it is necessary to dis-
cover and to relate all the conditions entering into its pro-
duction; in other words, what is required is a specification of
all the necessary conditions which together form the sufficient
cause of the event into whose nature we are inquiring.

While it may be true, for instance, that certain conditions
arising out of our present economic organization of society are
responsible for maintaining and exacerbating the problem of
"race," it is by no means certain that a reorganization of our
economic system would automatically result in a solution of
that problem, although it is more than probable that it would
help. It is quite conceivable that "race" problems may exist
under ideal economic conditions. These problems, indeed,
are by no means simple, and it is therefore necessary to ap-
proach them by the use of such methods as are most calcu-
lated to clarify them. It would obviously be an egregious
error to approach the study of "race" from the standpoint of
the economic determinant alone, precisely as it would be an
error to approach its study from the viewpoint solely of biol-
ogy or of sociology. And this brings us to what I consider to be
an extremely important methodological aspect of this whole
situation. It is the matter of the person who discusses the subject
of "race." Hitherto, practically anyone with the ability to de-
velop a hoarse throat, with arrogance in place of erudition,
has been able to set himself up as an authority on "race." We
need only recall the names of Gobineau, Stoddard, Houston
Stewart Chamberlain, Madison Grant, Adolf Hitler, and
others, to discover that the principal equipment necessary to
qualify one as an authority on "race" consists in a well-
rounded ignorance, a considerable amount of maliciousness,
and an unshakable confidence. To listen to such "tangled
oracles which ignorantly guide" is to suffer a positive increase
in one's ignorance. In the universe of science the situation,
though incomparably better, is not by any means as we have
already seen all that could be desired. Until very recently

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 77

very little progress has been made in the scientific study of
"race." This has been chiefly due to the fact that the subject
has been dealt with in piecemeal manner and by specialists
with an insufficient grasp of the complexities of the subject.
Thus, psychologists have failed to take into account the so-
ciological and biological factors; while sociologists have failed
to give adequate consideration to the psychological and bio-
logical factors. Finally, and worst of all, the physical anthro-
pologists have restricted their studies almost entirely to the
morphological aspects of the subject. There are, of course, a
few outstanding students, such as Boas 3 and Klineberg, 4 who
have attempted to take cognizance of all the necessary factors.
Actually, what we need is more students who will combine the
best qualities of the psychologist, the sociologist, and the biol-
ogist. Such a combination of qualities is scarcely realized in
the modern anthropologist, who treats man as if he were con-
stituted of two distinct and separate universes, a social and a
physical, each of which is considered to be the proper field of
study of one who qualifies by agreeing to know nothing about
the other.

Since, as I have already pointed out, facts do not speak for
themselves, but are at the mercy of whosoever chooses to give
them a meaning, it is obviously of the first importance that the
meaning which they shall receive be given them by thinkers
who have made themselves thoroughly acquainted with those
facts. As Vice-President Henry A. Wallace has said, "For the
combating of 'racism' before it sinks its poison fangs deep in
our body politic, the scientist has both a special motive and a
special responsibility. His motive comes from the fact that
when personal liberty disappears scientific liberty also dis-
appears, His responsibility comes from the fact that only he
can give the people the truth. Only he can clean out the falsi-
ties which have been masquerading under the name of sci-
ence in our colleges, our high schools and our public prints.

a Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man and Race, Language and Culture.
* Klineberg, Race Differences.

78 BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

Only he can show how groundless are the claims that one race,
one nation, or one class has any God-given right to rule/' 5

In the modern world racial problems, as I have already
pointed out, are essentially social problems. But no sociologist
can ever hope to assist in the solution of these problems with-
out acquiring an adequate understanding of what the biolo-
gist, the psychologist, and the psychoanalyst can alone supply,
namely, an appreciation of the nature of the fundamental
facts of physical and mental development. Obviously, what
we need is more human ecologists, liaison officers between the
sciences of man. 6 Such human ecologists are at present pitifully
few.

THE ECONOMIC FACTOR AND THE FACTOR OF
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

No one will deny that our society is a socially stratified one,
and there are few students of society who would deny that so-
cial stratification is determined principally by the manner in
which our society works economically. The proof of this lies
in the fact that it is usually possible to migrate from one social
stratum to another only by means of the economic process. By
the acquisition of economic power, one rises in the social hier-
archy; by the loss of economic power, one falls. Groups and
individuals who are denied effective participation in the eco-
nomic process clearly cannot rise above the lower social strata,
while the only way to exclude groups and individuals who
have not been denied an effective participation in the eco-
nomic process from rising and maintaining their places so-
cially is to erect barriers against them, to deprive them, in vari-
ous ways, of their economic rights. We need hardly go farther
back than our own time for the evidence with which to prove

6 Wallace, The Genetic Basis for Democracy, New York, American Com-
mittee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, 1939, p. 7. See also Wallace,
"Racial Theories and the Genetic Basis for Democracy," Science, LXXXIX
(1939), 140-43.

6 For a detailed discussion of this aspect of the subject see Montagu, "A
Cursory Examination of the Relations between Physical and Social Anthro-
pology," Arner. J. Phys. Anthrop., XXVI (1940), 41-61; "Physical Anthropology
and Anatomy," Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., XXVIII (1941), 861-71.

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 79

the truth of this statement. In the parts of Europe under Nazi
rule we have witnessed the deliberate creation of such a bar-
rier in the form of a mythological "racial" dogma which has
been imposed upon whole peoples a dogma which, in opera-
tion as a barrier, deprives all those who are not mythical
"Aryans" of the right to earn a living and to keep even the
little which they have. No more telling or painful example
than this could be cited of the blatant economic motivation
underlying the creation and practice of this mythology which
so effectively leads to the social and economic disfranchise-
ment of helpless groups. In the United States there are several
perfect examples which may be cited as illustrating the rela-
tionship between the economic factor and the presence of ra-
cial barriers. Along the Pacific coast, where the Japanese and
the Chinese constituted an appreciable competitive group,
there was considerable "race" prejudice against them. With
the increase in the number of Filipinos entering the United
States within recent years, despite the heroic resistance of
their compatriots against the Japanese in the Philippines and
their loyalty to America, the feeling is being rapidly trans-
ferred to them. 7 Along the Atlantic coast, where the numbers
of these ethnic groups are comparatively small and they can-
not possibly be conceived to constitute economic competitors,
there has been relatively little prejudice against them, apart
from that which has been generated by the war. Similarly, in
California, when American Indians were numerous there was
a great deal of prejudice against them. In the Middle West,
where Indians are relatively few and under "control," there
is very little prejudice against them. In the East a trace of
Indian ancestry definitely constitutes prestige value, for In-

7 "Unwanted Heroes," The New Republic, CVI (1942), 655; McWilliams,
Brothers under the Skin. It is sad to have to record the fact that in the third
week of September 1944 the Fourth Filipino Inter-Community convention held
at New City, California, adopted as two of its objectives "the abolition of
remaining discriminatory legislation against Filipinos" and "permanent post-
war exile of all Japanese from California" (reported in The Pacific Citizen, Salt
Lake City, Utah, 23 September 1944, pp. 3-4. The Filipinos apparently regard
the Japanese as serious economic competitors and desire to eliminate them by
this means. Or are they simply exhibiting a desire to jump on the bandwagon
of the most vocal California "patriots"?

8o BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

dians are so rare that they are almost worth their weight in
genes. In areas such as the South, where the social status of the
Negro is changing and he emerges as an economic competitor,
the prejudices against the large population of Negroes con-
stitutes a serious problem. In the North, where the economic
situation is much better, the Negro has always enjoyed a much
greater degree of social and economic freedom. In England,
where there are extremely few Negroes or Indians, there is
very little active prejudice against these peoples; but as soon
as an Englishman goes to Africa or to India, where he observes
that the native peoples definitely "threaten" his own inter-
ests and those of his own people, he almost invariably de-
velops the usual "racial" prejudices.

Without in the least underestimating the important part
which economic factors play in the creation of "race" prej-
udice in Western society generally, it may be observed that
there is no absolutely necessary or sufficient relationship be-
tween economic conditions and "racial" problems. Just as it
is possible to conceive of difficult racial problems existing
under ideal economic conditions, so it is quite possible to con-
ceive of perfect ethnic relations and mutual appreciation un-
der the most difficult economic conditions. The Soviet Union
is the outstanding example of perfect management of ethnic
group relations under, what were at one time at least, unusu-
ally difficult economic conditions. 8 It simply happens to be

8 In the Soviet Union "a determined stand has been taken against race
discrimination. The rational belief in the complete equality of all races has
become the official creed, and energetic educational efforts are being made to
raise the social and economic conditions of the underprivileged races. Whereas
in many parts of the world ruling classes or imperialist governments instigate
or refrain from suppressing race conflict for reasons of hegemony or exploita-
tion, communism helps to organize backward races in their struggle for
political and economic advancement and liberation. This assistance contrasts
with the attitude of many white labor and socialist groups among whom
race interests are stionger than class interests. The help given to backward
races by communists emanates not only from their identification of racial and
class conflicts and from an alliance against the capitalist and imperial powers
but also from the fundamental policy against race discrimination within the
Soviet Union. Bolshevism continues, in a rationalize/! and secularized form,
the stand of primitive Christianity against race discrimination: but the equali-
tarian Soviet theory goes farther than most Christian agencies in tackling not
only the psychological and emotional causes of race conflicts but also their

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 81

the case that in our own society the regrettable discovery has
been made that by utilizing the physical and cultural differ-
ences which exist between groups and individuals, it is a rela-
tively simple matter to disguise the motives and evade the
consequences of one's own conduct by attributing existing
and potential evils to the conduct of some other group or to
utilize those differences for the most ignoble political pur-
poses. Thus, by setting groups of people against one another
attention is diverted from the real sources of evil. The dis-
covery is actually a very old one. As a device for moving peo-
ple it is extremely well grounded in that it caters to a deep-
seated tendency in man to find some cause outside himself
upon which to blame his troubles or release his feelings.
Tertullian, for example, in pagan Rome was fully aware of the
fact that the persecution of the Christian minority was merely
being used as a device to sidetrack the attention of the people
from the real causes of corruption within the Roman State.
Says Tertullian, "if the Tiber rose to the walls of the city, if
the inundation of the Nile failed to give the fields enough
water, if the heavens did not send rain, if an earthquake oc-
curred, if famine threatened, if pestilence raged, the cry re-
sounded: 'Throw the Christians to the lions!* " In this man-
ner the Roman populace was provided, as later peoples have
been, with a socially sanctioned outlet for their pent-up feel-
ings. And that is the important point to grasp about the nature
of "race** prejudice, namely, that it is socially sanctioned and
socially learned. It is a ready-made and culturally accepted
outlet for various forms of hostility and feelings of frustration.
In the South "race" hatred has long been kept alive and
fanned to white heat at the instigation of unscrupulous indus-
trialists and politicians, ever ready to capitalize on baseless
popular superstitions, prejudices, and beliefs, because there
is no issue more useful than "race" as a political platform for

economic roots. The Soviet Union now is the only large area inhabited by
many races, free, as far as governmental agencies are concerned, of any form
of race prejudice." Kohn, "Race Conflict," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sci-
ences, XIII, 40. See also Stern, "Soviet Policy on National Minorities," Ameri-
can Sociological Review, IX (1944), 229-35.

8s BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

securing votes. Tell the poor whites that their condition is
due to the competition of the Negroes and that their very
existence is threatened by the latter, and they will vote for
anything to which such an issue is tied in apparent favor of
themselves. 9 The case is exactly the same in the Union of
South Africa, where a comparatively small white population
is attempting to protect its economic and social privileges
against any incursions which might be made upon them by
the large colored population, immigrants, and Jews. The Jews
form only 4% per cent of the total population, and they have
from the first proved themselves loyal and able citizens of
the Union. What, then, is the reason for the prejudice against
the Jews? Is it the fear of economic competition? In view of
their small representation this can hardly be so. While they
themselves do not constitute an economic problem, the prej-
udice against them is utilized and, indeed, inspired by poli-
ticians for economic purposes. In a recent sympathetic and
penetrating study of the Union Lewis Sowden returns an
answer to the question "Why prejudice against the Jews?" He
writes: "Simply this, that South Africa, like most other coun-
tries, has its Jewish problem kept alive by politicians for pur-
poses of personal or party aggrandisement. The Nationalists
used it in 1930 to strengthen their hold on the country and
to embarrass General Smuts's opposition. Their Quota Act

9 "There are millions of white and black men in the South, and their chil-
dren, on blighted farms and in the slums, who live a more bearable life
because of what the Roosevelt administration made possible. But these are the
poor and the ignorant, and their race hate, kept alive for years just as Gov-
ernor Dixon and the Alabama capitalists are keeping it alive now, makes them
vulnerable. Of these millions of people whom the New Deal aided, the Ne-
groes cannot vote; most of the whites who can have been poisoned by the
propaganda of the reactionaries into a belief that the President and Mrs.
Roosevelt are trying to wipe out all racial barriers under the war emergency;
the Dixons are now in the saddle; they seem to be able to foster on the dis-
franchised masses anything they want to; and once more in the South's sad
history, just as in the Agrarian-Populist movement in the iSgo's, the people's
enemies have taken over a people's movement. Once more the white man's
fear of the Negro has made it possible. It is no mystery why the South's con-
gressmen, elected by a small and privileged proportion of its population, fight
so hard to defeat an anti-poll-tax bill; and it is no mystery, come to think of it,
why reactionary Northern members, their blood brothers, by one subterfuge
and another let them get away with it." Sancton, "Trouble in Dixie," The New
Republic, CVIII (1943), 51.

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 83

[aimed against the Jews] had the full support of their own
people and many sympathisers among the other parties. Gen-
eral Smuts's men could not effectively oppose it for fear of
being accused as 'pro-Jewish/ fatal, of course, for any poli-
tician." 10

"Race" prejudice is easily generated in our society, because
our society is socially and economically so organized as to be
continually productive of frustrations in the individual; these
in turn produce an aggressiveness for which the individual
must find expression in some way. But the aggressiveness for
which the individual must find release is not entirely pro-
duced by economic factors. This, however, is a matter to which
we shall return later. It should be obvious that the frustrative
situations called into being by economic and social factors,
while producing some aggressiveness in the individual, do not
in themselves and need not necessarily lead to "race" preju-
dice. That the aggressiveness produced by such factors may
lead to "race" prejudice is entirely to be explained by the
fact that "race" prejudice constitutes a socially sanctioned and
a socially directed means of releasing aggressiveness. The ag-
gressiveness may in part be produced by socio-economic fac-
tors, but the form of the response which that aggressiveness
takes is not necessarily linked with such factors. Alternative
responses are available, but "race" prejudice is among the
easiest and the psychologically most satisfying. Merton has
described the frustrative situation very effectively. He writes:
"It is only when a system of cultural values extols, virtually
above all else, certain common symbols of success for the popu-
lation at large, while its social structure rigorously restricts
or completely eliminates access to approved modes of acquir-
ing these symbols for a considerable part of the same popula-
tion, that antisocial behavior ensues on a considerable scale.
In other words, our egalitarian ideology denies by implication
the existence of noncompeting groups and individuals in the
pursuit of pecuniary success. The same body of success-symbols
is held to be desirable for all. These goals are held to tran-

loSowden, The Union of South Africa, p. 216.

84 BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

scend class lines, not to be bound by them, yet the actual social
organization is such that there exist class differentials in the
accessibility of these common success-symbols. Frustration and
thwarted aspiration lead to the search for avenues of escape
from a culturally induced intolerable situation; or unrelieved
ambition may eventuate in illicit attempts to acquire the
dominant values. The American stress on pecuniary success
and ambitiousness for all thus invites exaggerated anxieties,
hostilities, neuroses and anti-social behavior." n

The avenue of escape from such frustrative conditions is
almost always the same, through aggressiveness. The object
to which that aggressiveness may attach itself is culturally
determined by what is rendered culturally available. "Race**
represents a cultural misunderstanding of certain facts, but
from the point of view of the psyche of the individual it pre-
sents a most satisfactory solution of a particular problem,
affording, as it does, both a convenient and a suitable release
object for aggressiveness. It should, however, be clearly under-
stood that the misunderstanding is cultural in origin, not
economic. The conception of "race" is a cultural artifact and
does not in itself lead to "race" prejudice. What leads to
"race" prejudice is the cultural manipulation of those psycho-
physical energies which, in most persons, overtly find expres-
sion in some form of aggressiveness, no matter what the nature
of the underlying motivation for that manipulation may be.
Economic factors represent but one group of conditions and
these are of the greatest importance by means of which such
aggressiveness may be called forth under conditions and in
situations in which it may be easily attached to "race." Eco-
nomic factors, in our society, are certainly among the most
important of the factors leading to situations in which "race"
prejudice may be caused to develop, but that such factors are
virtually entirely dependent upon cultural factors for the
direction which they may be made to give to individual ag-
gressiveness is proved by the fact that the aggressiveness aris-
ing under those same economic conditions can just as well be

HMerton, "Social Structure and Anomie," Amer. Social. Rev., Ill (1938), 680.

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 85

directed toward the production of good fellowship and mutual
aid between different ethnic and social groups. Such fellow-
ship and cooperation between different groups has been re-
peatedly witnessed in times of war, when, for example, an
alien nation has become the socially sanctioned release-object
for one's aggressiveness. In peace time the repair of some nat-
ural disaster, affecting the lives of all, frequently produces the
same effect, by providing a wholesome outlet for such aggres-
siveness. The attack upon some social problem requiring
solution is in every way a far more satisfactory outlet for ag-
gressiveness than an attack upon other human beings. Clearly,
then, it is what is culturally offered as the most suitable object
for the release of these aggressive tendencies that is the pri-
marily important fact, the economic factor is only of sec-
ondary importance. As Dollard has put it, "race prejudice
seems, then, but a footnote to the wider consideration of
the circumstances under which aggression may be expressed
within a society." 12 Economic conditions are culturally utiliz-
able, for good or for evil purposes, as each culture, or segment
thereof, sees fit. If in some cultures the aggressiveness which
arises under such conditions is made to release itself in hostile
behavior toward some group, that can hardly be said to be
due to economic conditions, but must clearly be held to be
due to those factors which render possible the cultural manip-
ulation of the situation to which such conditions give rise. In
short, economic factors may provide some of the conditions in
which "race" hostility may be generated, but unless those con-
ditions are directed into channels leading to "race** hostility,
there will be no "race" hostility, and the aggressiveness which
must be released will have to find some other outlet.

Prejudice against the Japanese in California affords an ex-
cellent case study of the complexity of the factors involved.
Here it would be an easy matter for the economic determinist
to show that economic factors are chiefly responsible for that
prejudice, but he would not be entirely correct. A study of

12 Dollard, "Hostility and Fear in Social Life," Social forces, XVII (1938),
15-26.

86 BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

the history o the prejudice against the Japanese in California
proves that a large number of independent factors are in-
volved.

In the first place, Japanese immigration into California un-
fortunately coincided with the rise of Japan as a great power
with territorial ambitions, hence Japanese immigrants came
to be regarded as "the spearhead of Japanese invasion." Cor-
rupt politicians, anxious to divert public attention from their
own malpractices, and newspapers supporting the latter or for
their own particular purposes, have continually emphasized
the danger that California might develop a "race problem*'
even worse than the color problem in the South. The con-
tinual emphasis on the inevitability of war with Japan, the
fact that the Japanese present very perceptible physical and
cultural peculiarities, their hard-won, but warmly resented,
expansion into fields of commerce in which they have become
competitors where whites formerly held the field exclusively,
are important factors, among others, which together have been
responsible for the development of "race" prejudice against
the Japanese in California. 13

The aggressive intentions of the Japanese government and
fear of the development of another "color problem," two
issues almost daily drummed into the ears of Californians,
would alone have been sufficient to produce an acute case of
"race" prejudice. Add to these the other factors already men-
tioned, and many others not mentioned, and it becomes clear
that any explanation in terms of a single factor does violence
to the facts.

Many Californians dislike the Japanese, not because they
constitute an economic threat, but because they have been
taught to believe that they are opposed to all that good Cali-
fornians and good Americans stand for. Today some Califor-
nians refuse to permit loyal American citizens of Japanese an-
cestry to return to their former homes in California. Scheming

is For an admirably clear analysis of the problem in California see Mc-
Williams, Brothers under the Skin, pp. 147-75, and the same author's Preju-
dice The Japanese- Americans: Symbol of Racial Intolerance.

BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS 87

politicians declare that were they permitted to do so every Jap-
anese seen on the streets would be killed, thus artfully inciting
the public to riot and murder. What are the motives of these
polwiticians? Obviously, what they have always been: to keep
the "race" issue alive so that they may fully exploit it for
their own and their friend's economic advantage.

The details may vary where the members of different ethnic
groups are involved and in different regions, but the general
pattern of racism is the same wherever found and under what-
ever high-sounding name it may be disguised. Not one factor,
but a complex of factors, is generally involved. Nevertheless,
when this has been said and all the necessary conditions enter-
ing into the cause of "race" prejudice have been specified, it
remains certain that the most important factor involved in
those conditions is the economic factor. Our economic sys-
tem with all the frictions, frustrations, misery, and war which
it brings is a basic cause of racism and "race" situations.
These, together, supply the motivation and a good deal of
the aggressiveness which is expressed in "race" prejudice.
"Race" prejudice is a socially sanctioned and socially directed
means of releasing aggression, because in our society there
exist powerful groups of men who for their own interest
and in order to maintain their power must maintain divi-
sions between men. It is the domestic application of the Nazi
formula "Divide and rule." What more simple than to pro-
duce such divisions between the members of different ethnic
groups within our society? They are "aliens," "foreigners,"
"the white man's burden," "the rising tide of color," "the
yellow peril," "Niggers," "the International Jew," "Wops,"
"Greeks," and so forth. In an economic organization of society
which is always characterized by the presence of one crisis or
another, with its attendant unemployment in the industries
involved, the aggrieved part of the population is easily led
to believe that if there were fewer people to be employed,
there would be employment and adequate wages for all.
"Race" antagonism under such conditions is easily generated.

It must always be remembered that, as Reuter has put it,

88 BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

"in the human as in the subhuman realm, the geographic dis-
tribution, the physical differences, the varying modes of life,
and the mental traits and characteristics are, in large measure,
the impersonally determined end results of the competitive
struggle to live. Men live where they can secure the means to
life, and they develop the physical, mental, and social char-
acters that enable them to live in the area." 14

One of the most serious "end results of the competitive
struggle to live" in our society is "race" prejudice. It has been
pointed out that the economic factor is not the sole condition
involved in the causation of "race" antagonism; it is a neces-
sary factor, but not the sufficient cause. I think we can all
accept that as a reasonable statement of the case. It should,
however, be quite clear that in our society the economic factor
is a predominant condition in the causation of such antag-
onisms, a necessary condition without which whatever we
may be able to conceive to the contrary such antagonisms
would not occur. Like good doctors, therefore, if we would
prevent the disease, we must eliminate or modify the princi-
pal condition or conditions which give rise to it. In other
words, we must eliminate the condition of economic duress
under which so many human beings are unjustly forced to live
today. By so doing we will have removed the most important
cause of "race" prejudice; such other causes as remain can
then be dealt with efficiently. This is something to understand
and to work for.

i* Renter, "Competition and the Racial Division of Labor/' in Race Rela-
tions and the Race Problem (edited by Thompson), p. 49.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

IT is AT this stage in our discussion that I wish to focus
attention upon the one general factor which seems to have
been almost always overlooked in discussions of the "race"
problem. This is the factor of the normal psychophysical and
psychological traits of the individual traits which are uti-
lized in the generation of "racial" enmities and which have
already been touched upon in the preceding chapter.

The one thing clear concerning "racial" hostility and preju-
dice is the ease with which individuals are led to exhibit it.
There are very few persons in our society who have not, at
one time or another, exhibited evidence of "racial" prejudice;
and it would seem clear that most persons are capable of being
brought to a state of mind in which they are really glad of
the opportunity of freely releasing their feelings against some
group or an individual representing such a group. When so-
ciety as a whole sanctions the attachment of such feelings to
any group, the free exercise of "racial" intolerance is enjoyed
as a happy release for feelings which are ever ready to find
expression. Now, it is in the nature of such feelings the
character of which we shall presently discuss that they can
be suitably directed against some individual or particular
group of individuals, and it is for this reason that they can be
so easily directed to the support and maintenance of "race"
prejudices. The individual exhibits "race" prejudice because
it affords him a means of easing certain tensions within him-
self; because he is happiest when he is most freely able to re-
lease those tensions. As far as the individual is concerned, the
prejudice itself is unimportant, it merely provides the channel
through which his feelings are allowed necessary expression.
Such feelings should, and for the sake of the health of the
individual must, find expression. As I have already said, such

go PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

feelings will attach themselves to the most suitable object
offered whatever it may be. Such feelings are not feelings of
"race" prejudice, or any other kind of prejudice; and they
are not inborn. On the contrary, such feelings are to a very
large extent generated during the early childhood develop-
ment of almost every person. There can, however, be little
doubt that the elementary forms of these affective states in
their undifferentiated condition, are physiologically deter-
mined. 1 The manner in which such feelings are generated has
been discussed in great detail by the psychoanalysts and others.
I shall here briefly review the process involved in these dy-
namisms.

The aggressiveness which adults exhibit in the form of
"race" hatred would appear to have universally the same
origin. By this I mean that the aggressiveness, not the "race"
hatred, has the same origin universally and that the aggres-
siveness is later merely arbitrarily directed, in some societies
against certain groups. Under other conditions this same ag-
gressiveness could be directed against numerous different
objects, either real or imagined. The object against which
aggressiveness is directed is determined by particular condi-
tions, and these we shall later briefly consider.

If it be agreed that in "racial" intolerance and prejudice a
certain amount of aggressiveness is always displayed, we must
ask and answer two questions: (i) where does this aggressive-
ness originate and (2) why is it exhibited?

Briefly, it is here suggested that a considerable amount of
the aggressiveness which adults exhibit is originally produced
during childhood by parents, nurses, teachers, or whoever else
participates in the process of socializing the child. By de-
priving the infant, and later the child, of all the means of satis-
faction which it seeks the nipple, the mother's body, uncon-
trolled freedom to excrete and to suck, the freedom to cry at
will, to scream and shout, to stay up as late as one wishes, to

i Fremont-Smith, "The Physiological Basis of Aggression," Child Study, XV
(1938), 1-8, and "The Influence of Emotional Factors upon Physiological and
Pathological Processes," Bull N.Y. Acad. Med. f XV (1939), 5 6 - 6 9-

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 91

do the thousand and one things that are forbidden, frustra-
tion upon frustration is piled up within the child. 2 Such
frustrations lead to resentment, to fear, to hatred, and to
aggressiveness. In childhood this aggressiveness or resentment
is displayed in "bad temper'* and in general "naughtiness."
Such conduct almost invariably results in further frustration
in punishment. At this stage of his development the child
finds himself in a state of severe conflict. He must either con-
trol the expression of his aggressiveness or else suffer the pun-
ishment and the loss of love which his aggressiveness provokes.
Such conflicts are usually resolved by excluding the painful
situation from consciousness and direct motor expression
in short, by the repression of one's aggressive energies. These
are rarely ever completely repressed, but only in so far as they
permit a resolution of the original conflict situation, and the
farther the original derivatives of what was primarily re-
pressed become removed from the latter, the more freely do
these energies gain access to consciousness and the more availa-
ble for use do they become. 3 The evidence renders it over-
whelmingly clear that these energies are never to any extent de-
stroyed or exhausted. Being a part of the total organism, they
must, in one way or another, find expression, and the ways in
which they can find expression are innumerable. "Race" ha-
tred and prejudice merely represent familiar patterns of the
manner in which aggressiveness may express itself. 4

Fear of those who have frustrated one in his childhood and
anxiety concerning the outcome of the situation thus pro-
duced lead to the repression of aggression against the original
frustrators and thereby to the conditioning of an emotional
association between certain kinds of frustrative or fear situa-
tions and aggressive feelings. As a result of such conditioning,
any object even remotely suggesting such fear or frustrative

2 Frustration may be understood as the thwarting of expected satisfaction.

3 It will be noted that there is here an interesting parallel to the second
law of thermodynamics.

4 For interesting treatments of this view see Dollard and others, Frustration
and Aggression, and Durbin and Bowlby, Personal Aggressiveness and War.

g PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

situations provokes the aggressive behavior with which such
fears and frustrations have become associated.

It must again be emphasized that the aggressiveness which
is more or less common to all human beings is not a cause of
"race" prejudice, but merely represents a motive force or affec-
tive energy which can be attached, among other things, to the
notion that other groups or "races" are hateful and may thus
serve to keep such ideas supplied with the emotional force
necessary to keep them going. Under such conditions "race"
becomes important, not as a biological description or ethnic
classification, but as the expression of an unconscious conflict.

Since the infliction of mental, and even physical, pain, as
well as the frustration and depreciation of others, is involved
in the process of "race" prejudice, and since much of the
aggressiveness of the individual owes its existence to early
experiences of a similar sort, it is perhaps not difficult to un-
derstand why it is that most persons are so ready to participate
in the exercise of "race" prejudice. By so doing they are able
to find an object for their aggressiveness which most satis-
factorily permits the free expression of aggressiveness by means
almost identically resembling those which in childhood were
indulged in against them. In this way is the individual en-
abled, as an adult, to pay off quite unconsciously an old
score of childhood frustration. The later very appreciable
frustrations suffered in adolescence and adult life naturally
add to the store and complexity of aggressiveness, and require
no discussion here. In this place we can do no more than refer
to such important psychological mechanisms as "displace-
ment," which defines the process whereby aggression is dis-
placed from one object to another, and "projection," the
process of attributing to others feelings and impulses orig-
inating in ourselves which have been refused conscious recog-
nition.

As MacCrone has written in a valuable study of the psy-
chology and psychopathology of "race" prejudice in South
Africa, "the extra-individual conflicts between the two racial
groups are but the intra-individual conflicts within the mind

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 93

writ large, and until the latter are removed, reduced, or modi-
fied, they must continue to exercise their baleful influence
upon the race relations and the race contacts of white and
black." 6

Briefly, then, the factor which has been most consistently
overlooked in discussions of "race** problems is the psycho-
logical factor; the deep motive forces represented by the ag-
gressiveness which is present in all human beings and is con-
tinually being augmented by the frustrations of adult life. It
is this aggressiveness which renders so easily possible the usual
emotional and irrational development of "race" prejudice. A
rational society must reckon with this factor, for since a cer-
tain amount of frustration is inevitable, and even desirable,
in the development of the individual and a certain amount of
latent aggressiveness is an ineradicable and necessary part of
the equipment of most human beings, 6 the task of an intel-
ligent society is clear. Society must provide outlets for the
aggressiveness of the individual which will result in benefits
both to the individual and through him to society. Outlets
for aggression which result in social friction and in the de-
struction of good relations between human beings must be
avoided. Frustrations in the early and subsequent develop-
ment of the individual must be reduced to a minimum, and
aggressiveness always directed toward ends of constructive
value.

ATTITUDES OF MIND

It has already been pointed out that the problem of "race"
in our society is social, and not biological in any but the nar-
row technical sense. Fairness toward other groups of persons is
a matter of simple human decency; and decency is an attitude
of mind, for the most part culturally produced. Whether
ethnic groups or castes are biologically equal is an utterly
irrelevant consideration where fair-mindedness is concerned.
Whatever differences exist between peoples and however they

fi MacCrone, Race Attitudes in South Africa, p. 310.

' "In this world it is very important to be aggressive, but it is fatal to appear
so." Benjamin Jowett.

94 PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

may have been determined, the willingness to understand
those differences and to act upon them sympathetically ought
to increase in proportion to the magnitude of the differences
which are believed to exist between ourselves and others. As
Professor E. G. Conklin has so well put it: "To the naturalist
the differences between human races, subraces, and individ-
uals are small indeed as compared with their manifold re-
semblances. Biology and the Bible agree that 'God hath made
of one blood all nations of men/ Our common traits and
origin and fate, our common hopes and fears, joys and sor-
rows, would call forth our common sympathy with all man-
kind, if it were not for the lessons of hate which have been
cultivated and instilled by selfish and unscrupulous persons
and social groups. These racial antagonisms are not the results
of inexorable nature, nor of inherited instincts, but of de-
liberate education and cultivation/' 7

The plea for fairness in dealing with different ethnic groups
is usually phrased in terms of "toleranc." But if we are to
make progress in ethnic relations it is desirable to recognize
that in practice tolerance amounts to what, for the most part,
we already have, namely, a somewhat reluctant admission of
the necessity of enduring that which we must bear, the pres-
ence of those whom we do riot like. A New York high-school
girl recently put the whole matter in a nutshell. "Tolerance,"
she said, "is when you put up with certain people but you
don't like to have them around anyhow." That, it is to be
feared, is the general conception of tolerance, the hand-
washing indifference of the "superior" being who patroniz-
ingly condescends to endure the coexistence of "inferior" be-
ings and then holds the latter at their "proper" distance.
Tolerance is the attitude of mind of those who consider them-
selves not only different but superior. It implies an attitude
toward different ethnic or minority groups, not of under-
standing, not of acceptance, not of recognition of human
equality, but of recognition of differences which one must
suffer generally, not too gladly. We must be more than tol-

7 Conkiin, "What Is Man?" Rice Institute Pamphlet, XXVIII (1941), 163.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 95

erant; we must be fair. Tolerance is the best one can hope for
from bigots; fairness is the attitude of mind we look for in
decent, humane people. By fairness, where ethnic relations are
concerned, is meant the attitude of mind which takes it for
granted, there being no actual evidence to the contrary, that
for all their individual differences no human being is really
superior to another by virtue of his group affiliation and that,
given the necessary opportunities, it is probable that the
average individual of any one group is capable of doing at
least as well as the average individual of the culturally most
advanced group. It is more than merely being willing to con-
cede that the others are not superior to us; it is readiness to
accept the verdict that we are not superior to the others. One
is not called upon to be magnanimous, still less is one called
upon to condemn or condone, but one is called upon to at-
tempt to be fair to understand and then to act upon that
understanding.

Until such an attitude of mind becomes part of the equip-
ment of every individual, no amount of instruction in tfye
biological facts concerning "race" will ever succeed in elim-
inating "race" prejudices.

"Race" prejudice is ultimately merely the effect of an in-
completely developed personality a personality, that is,
which has not yet learned any of the simple fundamental facts
of its own nature or of the nature of other human beings, for
to understand others it is first necessary to understand one-
self. Such a personality is still utilizing the infantile method
of beating the object which it imagines has in some way been
the cause of its frustration; it is a personality which is still
shifting the blame onto someone else for its errors and is still
boasting that 4< my father is bigger than yours." It is a person-
ality which contrasts sharply with the adult developed per-
sonality which tries to understand and does not seek to wash
its hands of its fellows by condemning or condoning their
conduct and thus dismissing them from its mind. The de-
veloped person does not automatically resort to the infliction
of punishment because he has been frustrated, but he attempts

96 PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

to understand the cause of his frustration and then, in the
light of that understanding, so to act that such frustrations
will not again be produced. He does not try to escape the
exercise of understanding by emotionally letting off steam.
He accepts responsibility for his own acts and is moved by the
injustice of the acts of others to attempt to remedy the condi-
tions which gave rise to them. He understands that no one's
father is really bigger than anyone else's father and that to act
in a superior manner is merely a childish way of asserting one's
childish desire to feel important, to feel that one amounts to
something. He realizes that, on the other hand, the desire to
feel that one belongs with all mankind and not above or below
any group, that to feel that one is of them and belongs with
them, is the most satisfying and efficient way of living and
thinking. He not only insists upon the right of everyone to be
different, but rejoices in most of those differences and is not
unsympathetically indifferent to those which he may dis-
like. He realizes that diversity is not only the salt of life but
aiso the true basis of collective achievement, and he does
everything in his power to further the purposes of that collec-
tive achievement. 8

True culture has been defined as the ability to appreciate
the other fellow. While this particular ability has many
sources, it is generally derived from varied, sympathetic, and
understanding contacts between people who differ from each
other in some respects. 9

If "race" prejudice is ever to be eliminated, society must
assume the task of educating the individual not so much
concerning the facts of "race" as about the processes which
lead to the development of a completely integrated human
being. The solution here, as in so much else, lies in education;
education for humanity first and with regard to the facts

For a valuable discussion of this aspect of the subject see Davidson, "The
Anatomy of Prejudice," Common Ground, I (1941), 3-12; and Huxley, Man
Stands Alone.

Taft, "Cultural Opportunities through Race Contacts," Journal of Negro
History, XIV (1929), 19.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 97

afterward. For of what use are facts unless they are intel-
ligently understood and humanely used?

Suppose for a moment that significant differences did exist
between different peoples which rendered one, in general,
superior to the other, a reasonably developed human being
would hardly consider such differences sufficient reason for
withholding any opportunities for social and cultural develop-
ment from such groups. On the contrary, he would be the
more anxious to provide them with such opportunities. Un-
developed personalities operate in the opposite way and,
creating most of the differences they condemn, proceed to
intensify those differences by making it more and more dif-
ficult for the groups thus treated to avoid or to overcome them.

Fromm writes: "The implicit assumption underlying much
reactionary thinking is that equality presupposes absence of
difference between persons or social groups. Since obviously
such differences exist with regard to practically everything
that matters in life, their conclusion is that there can be no
equality. When the liberals conversely are moved to deny the
fact of great differences in mental and physical gifts and fa-
vorable or unfavorable accidental personality conditions, they
only help their adversaries to appear right in the eyes of the
common man. The concept of equality as it has developed in
Judaeo-Christian and in modern progressive tradition means
that all men are equal in such basic human capacities as those
making for the enjoyment of freedom and happiness. It means,
furthermore, that as a political consequence of this basic
equality no man shall be made the means to the ends of an-
other group. Each man is a universe for himself and is only
his own purpose. His goal is the realization of his being, in-
cluding those very peculiarities which are characteristic of
him and which make him different from others. Thus, equality
is the basis for the full development of difference, and it results
in the development of individuality." 10

The evidence suggests that there exist no really significant

10 Fromm, "Sex and Character," Psychiatry t VI (1943), 23.

98 PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

differences between groups of mankind, that there are differ-
ences only between individuals. In every group there will be
found a large range of differences in the native endowment of
its members, some individuals are naturally inferior to others
in the realizable potentials of intelligence, in vigor, or in
beauty. Such differences may, by some, be made the pretext
for heaping contumely and humiliation upon those who are
less fortunately endowed than their fellows; but it would be
scarcely human to do so and less than decent.

It should be clear that both the form of the mind and the
form of the body are so dependent upon social conditions
that when the latter are unequal for different groups, little or
no inference can be made as to the mental and physical po-
tentialities of those groups.

Until we have succeeded, by means of the proper educa-
tional methods, in producing that cultivation of the mind
which renders nothing that is human alien to it, the "race"
problem will never be completely solved. The means by which
that problem may to some extent be ameliorated have already
been indicated and will be further discussed in the last chap-
ter and the appendix which follows it.

There is one more aspect of the psychology of "race" prej-
udice to which I should like to draw attention, that is, the
process of rationalization, the process of finding reasons to
justify one's emotionally held beliefs.

We saw in Chapter i by what means "race" prejudice orig-
inally came into existence in the United States, namely, as
the device by means of which the proslavery party attempted
to meet the arguments of the abolitionists that the slaves were
men and brothers and should be free. The upholders of slav-
ery avidly sought for reasons with which to justify their inter-
est in maintaining that institution, and they brought those
reasons forward in force and from all sorts of sources, includ-
ing the Bible. But no matter from what source they drew their
reasons, they were nothing but rationalizations of the worst
kind.

Since "race" prejudice invariably rests on false premises, for

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 99

the most part of emotional origin, it is not surprising to find
that it is practically always rationalized. And so it has always
been. As Professor W. O. Brown points out: "The rationaliza-
tion is a moral defense. And the rationalizer is a moralist. The
rationalization, in the nature of the case, secures the believer
in his illusion of moral integrity. The morality of the ration-
alization is perhaps intensified by the fact that it represents
an effort to make that which is frequently vicious, sordid,
and inhumane rational, idealistic, and humane. The semi-
awareness of the real nature of the attitude being rationalized
intensifies the solemnity with which the rationalization is
formulated. Securing moral values the rationalization nat-
urally partakes of a moral quality. This fact explains, in part,
perhaps, the deadly seriousness of the devotee of the ration-
alization. Its value lies in the fact that it removes the moral
stigma attached to race prejudice, elevating this prejudice into
a justified reaction." u

The rationalization is not, of course, regarded as the expres-
sion of prejudice, but rather as the explanation of one's be-
havior the reason for it. Few rationalizers are aw r are of the
fact that their reasons are simply devices for concealing the
real sources of their anatagonisms. They do not know that
thought is a means both of concealing and of revealing feel-
ings and that a conviction in the rationality of one's conduct
may signify little more than a supreme ability at self-deception.
As Professor Brown remarks, "the rationalization is not re-
garded as cloaking antagonism, but is regarded as a serious
interpretation of conduct. No good rationalizer believes that
he is prejudiced/' Hence, the stronger the reasons we hold
for any belief, the more advisable it is to inquire into the
soundness of the supports upon which they rest. This is espe-
cially true when the beliefs are as strongly held as they are in
connection with "race" prejudice.

11 W. O. Brown, "Rationalization of Race Prejudice," The International
Journal of Ethics, LXIII (1933), 305.

8

THE CREATIVE POWER OF
"RACE" MIXTURE

ONE OF THE MOST strongly entrenched popular super-
stitions is the belief that interbreeding, or crossing, be-
tween "races" results in inferior offspring and that the
greater part of such crossings lead to degeneration of the stock.
The commonly employed stereotype has it that the half-caste
inherits all the bad and none of the good qualities of the
parental stocks. These bad qualities the half-breed is said to
transmit to his offspring, so that there is produced a very
gradual and a very definite mental and physical deterioration
within the group, finally resulting in complete infertility.
Not only has the dying-out of peoples been attributed to this
cause, but it has also been held responsible for "the chronic
unrest of eastern Europe, the so-called 'eastern question* "
being, it is alleged, "only the ferment of mixed bloods of
widely unlike type." 1

A quite novel view of the dangers of "race" mixture has
been expressed by the late Madison Grant. According to this
writer the native American of colonial stock "will not bring
children into the world to compete . . . with the Slovak, the
Italian, the Syrian, and the Jew. The native American is too
proud to mix socially with them, and is gradually withdraw-
ing from the scene, abandoning to these aliens the land which
he conquered and developed." 2

Here we perceive that it is the fear of "race" mixture, of
"race" contamination, and a sense of pride in the "purity" of
one's own stock which, according to Madison Grant, is lead-
ing to the disappearance of that Old American stock in the
United States.

As is the case with most of the evils which have been attrib-

i Widncy, in Mankind; Racial Values and the Racial Prospects, I (1917), 167.
* Grant. The Passing of the Great Race, pp. 81-82.

"RACE" MIXTURE 101

uted to so-called "miscegenation," or "race" mixture, there
is not a particle of truth in any of these statements. Such facts
as they may have reference to are in practically every case due
to purely social factors. The colonial stock from which Madi-
son Grant's long-headed, blond, blue-eyed native American
is supposed to have descended was far from being the homo-
geneous "Nordic" stock which he and Henry Fairfield Os-
born imagined. It was left to one of those scorned lowly
"Slovaks," who had come to these shores as a poor immigrant
boy, the distinguished American physical anthropologist Ales
Hrdlicka, to prove that the colonial stock was a very mixed
lot indeed. The evidence indicates that very few of them could
have been blonds and that the roundheaded were distinctly
more numerous than the longheaded. 8

The fact that half-castes often impress those who are not
disposed to judge them sympathetically as mentally and mor-
ally inferior to their parental stocks is, in many cases, to be
explained by the fact that such hybrids are acceptable neither
to the mother's group, on the one hand, nor to the father's
group, on the other. That, indeed, is the precise significance
implied in the term "half-caste." In most instances the half-
caste himself finds it extremely difficult to adjust to condi-
tions which are themselves the cause of maladjustment in
others. Generally it is his lot to live under conditions of the
most depressing kind and to occupy an anomalous and am-
biguous position in society. 4 As Castle has written: "Since
there are no biological obstacles to crossing between the most
diverse human races, when such crossing does occur, it is in
disregard of social conventions, race pride and race preju-
dice. Naturally therefore it occurs between antisocial and out-
cast specimens of the respective races, or else between con-
querors and slaves. The social status of the children is thus
bound to be low, their educational opportunities poor, their
moral background bad. . . . Does the half-breed, in any com-

Hrdlicka, The Old Americans, p. 54.

* For a discussion of the half-caste in our society see Stonequist, The Marginal
Man: a Study in Personality and Culture Conflict.

102 "RACE" MIXTURE

munity of the world in which he is numerous, have an equal
chance to make a man of himself, as compared with the sons of
the dominant race? I think not. Can we then fairly consider
him racially inferior just because his racial attainments are
less? Attainments imply opportunities as well as abilities." 5
Coming, as they do, from one of the world's leading mam-
malian geneticists, those words are worth a great deal.

There can be little doubt that those who deliver themselves
of unfavorable judgments concerning "race-crossing" are
merely expressing their prejudices. For within the frame-
work which encloses the half-caste we are dealing with a con-
spicuous example of the action of socially depressing factors,
not with the effects of biological ones. The truth seems to be
that far from being deleterious to the resulting offspring and
the generations following them, interbreeding between dif-
ferent ethnic groups is from the biological standpoint highly
advantageous to mankind.

Just as the fertilizing effects of the contact and mixing of
cultures leads to the growth and development of the older
forms of culture and the creation of new ones within it, so,
too, does the interbreeding of different ethnic groups lead to
the growth and development of the physical stock of mankind.

It is through the agency of interbreeding that nature, in
the form of "man's genetic system, shows its creative power. Not
so long ago, when it was the custom to personify nature and to
speak somewhat metaphysically of "her" as the purposive
mother of us all, we should have said that crossing is one of
nature's principal devices for the uninterrupted production
of ever new and more vigorous types of life.

Hybridization is one of the most fundamental processes of
evolution. Hybridization of plants in nature is a continuous
phenomenon, in lower animals it is also continually proceed-
ing, while in man it is an age-old process which was unques-
tionably operative among his protohuman ancestors. 6 The ad-

5 Castle, "Biological and Social Consequences of Race Crossing," Amer. }.
Phys. Anthrop., IX (1926), 147.

6 Darwin was probably the first biologist to suggest that it was the bringing
together of dissimilar germinal substances, rather than the mere act of crossing

"RACE" MIXTURE 103

vantages of hybridization over any other process in developing
new human types should be obvious. Evolution by mutation,
for example, is a very slow and incalculable process com-
pared with evolution by hybridization. 7 Furthermore, far
from causing any existing stocks to die out, the injection of
new genes into old stocks has often been the one means which
has not only saved them from extinction but also served com-
pletely to revitalize them.

Populations consisting of inbred family lines need not be
genetically any better or worse than populations which are
not mixed, but if, on the whole, we compare the advantages of
inbreeding with those of outbreeding, the advantages are
chiefly with the latter. Inbreeding is not in itself a bad thing,
and under certain conditions may be favorable for the pro-
duction of speedy evolutionary changes, but there is always
a danger of degenerative effects arising from the emergence of
concealed deleterious recessive genes. In outbreeding, on the
other hand, this danger is reduced to a minimum or alto-
gether eliminated. In general outbreeding serves to increase
physical vigor and vitality. Depending upon the size of the
population inbreeding in small populations tends to produce
a relative homogeneity of characters; outbreeding, on the
other hand, tends to produce a heterogeneity of characters and
to increase variability. The former state, over the course of
time, may give rise to an actual condition of stagnation or the
inability to meet new environmental conditions; the latter to
an increased physical vigor and vitality.

An example from human populations will illustrate this.
Ride has recently shown that the inland populations of North
Borneo exhibit a dangerously low birth rate in comparison
with the coastal populations. The former are exclusively in-
breeding groups; the latter, because of their contacts with
many different peoples on the coast, are very largely out-
breeding groups. As Ride has put it: "Biological history is

which produced an increase in size and vigor in hybrid plants and animals.
See Darwin, Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication.
7 Hybridization may cause a speeding up of mutation rates.

104 "RACE" MIXTURE

full of instances of the price paid by races, both plant and
animal, which cannot cope with a change in environment.
... A large population of heterogeneous individuals en-
sures that a change in environment will be successfully met
by the survival of at least a percentage of the population,
whereas a population of relatively homogeneous individuals
such as may be produced by continued inbreeding and
selection stands less chance of successfully negotiating a
marked environmental change. . . . Any new infusion of
blood should come from tribes that have proved themselves
to be capable of surviving the changed environment. By this
means and this only will the population be saved, and when
all is said and done, this is merely the way that nature herself
copes with these problems." 8

The phenomenon of increased vigor following upon hy-
bridization has been long recognized by biologists and is
known as heterosis, or hybrid vigor. 9 * By "hybrid vigor" is
meant the phenomenon frequently observed as a result of the
crossing of the members of two distinct species, varieties, or
groups, in which the hybrid, that is, the offspring resulting
from the union of a sperm and an egg which differ in one or
more genes, exceeds both parents in size, fecundity, resistance,
or other adaptive qualities.

From this definition it will be perceived that all possible
matings between human beings must result in hybrids, since
all potential human matings, whether they occur in the same
or different ethnic groups, are necessarily between individ-
uals who differ from one another in many more than one
gene. In practice, however, the term "hybrid" is used to refer
to the offspring of two individuals who differ from one another
in their genetic constitution for one or more distinctive char-
acters or qualities. The essential difference between these

Ride, "The Problem of Depopulation with Special Reference to British
North Borneo," The Caduceus (University of Hongkong), XIII (1934), 182-83.

9 As early as 1859 Darwin wrote: "Hence it seems that, on the one hand,
slight changes in the conditions of life benefit all organic beings, and on the
other hand, that slight crosses, that is, crosses between the males and females
of the same species, which have been subjected to slightly different conditions,
or which have slightly varied give vigour and fertility to the offspring." The
Origin of Species, chap. ix.

"RACE" MIXTURE 105

two conceptions of a hybrid is an important one; we shall
return to it upon a later page. In what follows we shall abide
by the latter conception of a hybrid because it is in that sense
that the term is most commonly used.

The evidence indicates that hybrid vigor results because
each parent supplies dominant genes for which the other
parent is recessive. In other words, characters or qualities
which would not normally be expressed or come into being
were each of the parents to breed within their own groups,
are newly created when there is cross-breeding between the
members of different groups. It is for this reason that stocks of
human beings on the verge of extinction may be saved by a
new infusion of genes which combine with those of the old
stock to result in vigorous offspring.

The new types which emerge in this way generally exhibit
something more than merely the blended sum of the proper-
ties of the parental types, that is, they show some characters
and qualities which are in their way somewhat novel, char-
acters not originally possessed by although potentially pres-
ent in the groups from which the parents have been derived.
We have here the emergence of novelty, the emergents of
hybrid syntheses, or emergent evolution in process.

It is, indeed, a sad commentary upon the present condition
of Western man that when it is a matter of supporting his
prejudices, he will distort the facts concerning hybridization
so as to cause laws to be instituted making it an offense against
the state. But when it comes to making a financial profit out
of the scientifically established facts, he will employ geneticists
to discover the best means of producing hybrid vigor in order
to increase the yield of some commercially exploitable plant
or animal product. But should such a geneticist translate his
scientific knowledge to the increase of his own happiness and
the well-being of his future offspring, by marrying a woman
of another color or ethnic group, the probability is that he
will be promptly discharged by his employer. 10

Utilizing the knowledge of hybrid vigor, animal geneticists

10 This has actually occurred in the case of one of the world's leading plant
geneticists.

io6 "RACE" MIXTURE

have succeeded in producing offspring that for particular
desired characters are in every way superior to the parental
stock, while plant geneticists have succeeded, by the same
means, in producing enormous increases in sugar cane, corn,
fruits, vegetables and other economically important food-
stuffs. 11 Such hybrids are not inferior to their parents, but
exhibit qualities far superior to those possessed by either of
the parental stocks. They are so far from being weakly that
they will frequently show, as in the case of certain kinds of
maize, an increase in yield between 150 to 200 percent. They
are usually larger, stronger, fitter, and better in almost every
way than their ancestral parent stocks.

As a rule, hybridization can take place only between the
members of the same species, although interspecific crosses
and even intergeneric crosses do occasionally occur. The best-
known example of an interspecific cross is the mule, which is
the hybrid of a cross between the horse (Equus caballus) and
the donkey or ass (Equus asinus). The mule combines most of
the good qualities of its parental stocks. From the horse it
inherits its speed, size, strength, and spiritedness; from the
donkey its sure-footedness, lack of excitability, endurance, and
ability to thrive on little food. Because of these qualities it is
able to adapt itself to conditions in which both the horse and
the donkey would fail. Hence, the mule fetches a higher
market price than do animals of either of its parental stocks.
The mule, however, is itself sterile. Knowledge of this fact has,
perhaps, been responsible for the notion that hybridization
generally results in sterility. This is, of course, quite erroneous
except, for the most part, in those comparatively rare cases
in which interspecific crosses are involved.

All ethnic groups of mankind belong to the same species,
and all are mutually fertile, as are the resulting offspring of
mating between the members of such groups. The evidence,
though by no means conclusive, suggests that among human
beings, as among other forms of life, hybrid vigor is most
markedly characteristic of the first generation of hybrids. In

11 Crocker, "Botany of the Future," Science, LXXXVIII (1938), 391.

"RACE" MIXTURE 107

the succeeding generations there would appear to be a gradual
decline in vigor, possibly owing to the reestablishment of a
relative homozygosity by inbreeding. Thus, one of the princi-
pal means of revitalizing any group of living forms is by hy-
bridization, and this is precisely what has occurred, from the
earliest times, in man.

For early man, in process of evolution, we have one very
clear example of evolution by hybridization in the Neander-
thaloid people, whose fossil remains were recently discovered
at Mount Carmel in Palestine. 12 The variability presented by
the skeletal remains of the Carmelites is such as to render the
conclusion inescapable that within a relatively short time
before the death of the recovered individuals the group of
which they had been members had received an infusion of
new genes from some other distinct group.

Inbreeding tends to stabilize the type and in the long run to
produce a decrease in vigor. Outbreeding, on the contrary,
increases the variability of the type and, at least temporarily,
augments its vigor. This is particularly significant in the case
of small breeding groups in which the rate of homozygosis is
likely to be more rapid than in larger populations. As I have
written elsewhere: "Left to themselves relatively small breed-
ing groups, such as the Carmelites, rapidly become homo-
zygous; there is a scattering of variability, and the process
which 'race* is, becomes temporarily genetically stable; in
man the process generally becomes unstable by the introduc-
tion of new genes, by heterozygosis, resulting in a greater
variability, until there is again a synthesizing of the new com-
binations, and the group is once more, homozygous accord-
ing to the new pattern of genetic combinations." 18

It is in the light of such genetic facts that one is able to say
with a high degree of probability that the evidence as presented

12 For a description of these remains see McCown and Keith, The Stone Age
of Mount Carmel, Vol. II. For a discussion of the hybridization hypothesis ex-
planatory of the variability of these remains see Montagu's review of the
above work under the section "Prehistory" in the American Anthropologist,
XLII (1940), 518-22.

is Montagu, ibid., p. 521.

io8 "RACE" MIXTURE

by the great variability of the skeletal remains of the prehis-
toric Carmelites indicates relatively recent hybridization.

It has already been suggested that one of the principal agen-
cies in the production of new human types has been in the
past, as it is in the present, hybridization. In fact, at all
times in man's evolutionary history he has unconsciously
conducted his reproductive life in a manner which the pro-
fessional stockbreeder would undoubtedly pronounce very
satisfactory.

Thus, in a treatise on stockbreeding one of America's fore-
most geneticists, Professor Sewall Wright, summarizes the
facts relating to hybridization in these words: "By starting a
large number of inbred lines, important hereditary differ-
ences in these respects are brought clearly to light and fixed.
Crosses among these lines ought to give full recovery of what-
ever vigor has been lost by inbreeding, and particular crosses
may be safely expected to show a combination of desired char-
acters distinctly superior to the original stock, a level which
could not have been reached by selection alone. Further im-
provement is to be sought in a repetition of the process iso-
lation of new inbred strains from the improved crossbred
stock, followed ultimately by crossing and selection of the best
crosses for the foundation of the new stock/' 14

This, by arid large, is actually the way in which new human
ethnic groups and varieties have come into being and evolved.
First, by isolation and inbreeding and the action of various
selective factors, then, by contact with other groups and cross-
breeding with them, followed once more by isolation and in-
breeding. This process has, of course, occurred with various
degrees of frequency in different human groups, but that it
has occurred in some degree in all is certain.

All that we know of the history of mankind points to con-
stant migration and the intermingling of peoples. Today over
the greater part of the earth human hybridization is proceed-
ing at vastly more rapid rates than at any previous period in

i* Wright, Principles of Live Stock Breeding, U.S, Department of Agriculture
Bulletin, 905 (1920).

"RACE" MIXTURE , 109

the history of man, and a vastly greater number of peoples is
being involved in the process at one and the same time. The
tragedy, however, is that while the genes combine to produce
new types which are often recognizably superior in some traits
to their parental stocks and generally novel, the prejudices of
men for the most part conspire to render those novel traits
worthless and their possessors miserable.

In many parts of the world where colored peoples live un-
der the domination of the white man the hybrid is, by the
white man, usually regarded as something of an outcast
"outcast" and "half-caste" being regarded as synonymous
terms an error which if it is to be at all acknowledged, must
be viewed with unconcealed disgust. There have been and
will continue to be some exceptions to this kind of attitude,
but on the whole it will be agreed by those who are at all ac-
quainted with the facts that the hybrid, or mixed-breed, has
received a very raw deal at the hands of the whites.

When instead of being ostracized by the whites, hybrid
children and adults are given an opportunity to show what
they can do, the results have often been so disconcerting to
their alleged superiors that everything possible has been done
either to suppress or to distort the facts. 15 It is certainly un-
equivocally clear to those who are capable of viewing the evi-
dence dispassionately that biologically the offspring of mixed
unions are, on the whole, at least as good human beings in
most respects, and better in some, than their parents. Did we
not have good reason to believe this from our daily experience

is In a recently published textbook of psychology an account is given of a
young girl who belongs in the genius class, without any mention being made
of the fact that she is the daughter of a Negro father and a white mother.
In Los Angeles, in nonsegregated public schools attended by Negro and white
children, it was found that 500 Negro children ranked slightly higher in in-
telligence than the white group in the same schools with whom they were
compared. References to such findings are seldom seen or heard. See Clark,
Los Angeles Negro Children, Educational Research Bulletin, Los Angeles City
Schools (1923). An outstanding example of distortion of the facts has recently
been provided by Representative May of Kentucky, chairman of the House
Military Affairs Committee, who caused the suppression for use by the United
States Army of a pamphlet, The Races of Mankind, written by two distin-
guished anthropologists, Professor Ruth Benedict and Dr. Gene Weltfish, of
the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University. See pp. 138-41.

no "RACE" MIXTURE

of such offspring, we should expect it upon the grounds of
such genetic evidence as we have already briefly discussed.

Here we may briefly cite the evidence, such as it is, for exist-
ing populations whose mixed ancestry is known and which
have been the subject of anthropological studies.

POLYNESIAN-WHITE CROSSES

In the year 1790 nine English sailors and about twelve Ta-
hitian women and eight Tahitian men landed on the isle of
Pitcairn in the mid-Pacific. The English sailors were the rem-
nant of the mutineers of the English warship Bounty who had
made their escape to this lonely island. The story is now well
known. What is not so well known is that the descendants of
the English mutineers and the Tahitian women are to this day
living on Norfolk and Pitcairn Islands. Dr. H. L. Shapiro, who
has studied both groups in their island homes, found that the
offspring of the initial white-Tahitian unions were very nu-
merous, being 1 1.4 children per female on Pitcairn and 9.1 on
Norfolk Island. 16 A large proportion of these hybrids were
long-lived, and they have had unusually long-lived descend-
ants. The modern Norfolk and Pitcairn Islanders are taller
than the average Tahitian or Englishman, are more vigorous,
robust, and healthy, and mentally they are perfectly alert. The
general conclusion is that after five generations of inbreeding
these descendants of Polynesian-white unions show little if
any diminution of the hybrid vigor of the first generation.

The physical type of the descendants is in every way per-
fectly harmonious, with white characters predominating. Sha-
piro concludes:

"This study of race mixture on the whole rather definitely
shows that the crossing of two fairly divergent groups leads
to a physical vigor and exuberance which equals if not sur-
passes either parent stock. My study of the Norfolk Islanders

i Shapiro, Descendants of the Mutineers of the Bounty (Memoirs of the
Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 1929, Vol. XI, No. i) and The Heritage
of the Bounty.

"RACE" MIXTURE 111

shows that this superiority is not an ephemeral quality which
disappears after the l or F 2 generation, but continues even
after five generations. Furthermore, the close inbreeding
which the Norfolk hybrids have practiced has not led to physi-
cal deterioration.

"This conclusion regarding the physical vigor of the Nor-
folk hybrids applies also to their social structure, which on
Pitcairn was not only superior to the society instituted by the
Englishmen themselves, but also contained elements of suc-
cessful originality and adaptability. Although the Norfolk
Island society is much influenced by European contacts, it
has maintained itself a fact which acquires increased sig-
nificance in view of the deterioration of the fiber of Polyne-
sian life as a result of European influences." 17 This conclusion
also holds good for the Pitcairn Islanders.

Perhaps the best effects of human hybridization under fa-
vorable social conditions is presented by the character and the
achievements of the offspring of Maori-white unions and their
descendants in New Zealand. Both physically and culturally
the hybrids combine the best features of both ethnic groups. 18
Native as well as hybrid Maoris have shown themselves in
every way as capable as the whites, and one Maori has actually
been Prime Minister of New Zealand, while several others
have been ministers of high rank in its government, achieve-
ments rendered possible by the fact that there is virtually no
color bar or discrimination of any kind in New Zealand. 19

AUSTRALIAN-WHITE CROSSES

Social conditions could not be more unfavorable for the
offspring of aboriginal-white crosses than they are in Austra-
lia, yet all unprejudiced observers agree that the offspring of
such crosses represent an excellent physical type and that both

i? Shapiro, Descendants of the Mutineers of the Bounty, p. 69.

is Condliffe, New Zealand in the Making; Keesing, The Changing Maori.

19 Nash, "Democracy's Goal in Race Relationships with Special Reference
to New Zealand/' in Laidler (editor) The Role of the Races in Our future
Qivilization, pp. i?-i$.

us "RACE" MIXTURE

the aborigines and the hybrids are possessed of considerable
mental ability. 20 There can be little doubt that were the abori-
gines and half-castes treated as they deserve to be, they would
do quite as well as the Maori or any other people. Cecil
Cook, the Chief Protector of Aboriginals in the Territory of
Northern Australia, in an official report on the subject made
to his government in 1933, stated that: "Experience shows
that the half-caste girl can, if properly brought up, easily be
elevated to a standard where the fact of her marriage to a
white will not contribute to his deterioration. On the con-
trary under conditions in the Territory where such marriages
are socially accepted amongst a certain section of the popula-
tion, the results are more beneficial than otherwise since the
deterioration of the white is thereby arrested and the local
population is stabilized by the building of homes. It is not to
be supposed that such marriages are likely to produce an in-
ferior generation. On the contrary a large proportion of the
half-caste female population is derived from the best white
stock in the country whilst the aboriginal inheritance brings
to the hybrid definite qualities of value intelligence, stam-
ina, resource, high resistance to the influence of tropical
environment and the character of pigmentation which even
in high dilution will serve to reduce the at present high inci-
dence of Skin Cancer in the blonde European." 21 The half-
caste males are, of course, to be bred back to "full-blood" na-

20 The evidence for these statements is to be found in a large number of
scattered books, periodicals, and newspapers not usually read by anthropolo-
gists. Among these I would particularly diaw attention to the following:
G. H. Wilkins, Undiscovered Australia, pp. 242-62, and the plate opposite
p. 256 showing half-caste girls; McLaren, My Crowded Solitude, Cecil Cook,
Report of the 2jth of June, 1933, by the Chief Protector of Aboriginals in the
Northern Territory of Australia; Terry, Hidden Wealth and Hiding People;
Idriess, Over the Range; Bates, The Passing of the Aborigines; J. R. B. Love,
Stone Age Bushmen of To-Day, London, Blackie, 1936; Porteous, The Psychol-
ogy of a Primitive People; Montagu, Coming into Being among the Australian
Aborigines; Lefroy, "Australian Aborigines; a Noble Hearted Race," Con-
temporary Review, CXXXV (1929), 22; Eleanor Dark, The Timeless Land,
New York. Macmillan, 1941. Herbert, Capricornia.

21 Cook, Report of the ijth of June, 1933, by the Chief Protector of Aborig-
inals in the Northern Territory of Australia; reprinted in the Report of the
Commission on Mixed Marriages in South Africa t Pretoria, 1939* p. 5.

"RACE" MIXTURE 113

tive women. From Dr. Cook's report it is very evident that the
half-caste, in the Northern Territory at least, is considerably
advantaged by his biological heritage. This is undoubtedly
true of all half-castes in Australia. 22 In terms that Western
peoples readily understand, such facts as the following should
not be unimpressive.

Writing in 1899, ^e Rev. John Mathew states: "In schools,
it has often been observed that aboriginal children learn quite
as easily and rapidly as children of European parents. In fact,
the aboriginal school at Ramahyuck, in Victoria, stood for
three consecutive years the highest of all state schools of the
colony in examination results, obtaining one hundred per
cent of marks." 23

In May, 1926, a pure aboriginal, Jacob Harris, defeated the
draughts (checkers) champions of New South Wales and West-
ern Australia, being himself subsequently defeated by the
champion of Victoria. This aboriginal had learned the game
at the Mission Station by watching over the shoulders of the
players and was entirely self-instructed. 24

Tindale, who has recently completed a survey of the half-
caste problem in Australia, cites a number of cases which sug-
gest that hybrid vigor is the rule in aboriginal-white crosses.
Tindale also gives it as his opinion that the reproductive and
survival rates of the latter are probably higher than among
whites. He concludes: "There seems little evidence to indi-
cate that the difficulties of adjustment mixed breeds may have
at present are particularly the result of marked ethnic inferi-
ority. Physically many are of fine type, and have shown their
physical superiority for example in sports such as running,
football and boxing their disabilities seem to be lack of edu-
cation and home-training and the discouragement implicit in
belonging to an outcast stock. There may be no mixed blood

22 Tindale, "Survey of the Half-Caste Problem in South Australia/' Pro-
ceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, South Australian Branch, session
1940-41, pp. 66-161.

23 Mathew, Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 78. Mathew's italics.

2* Reported in the Daily Express (London), 27 May, 1926; see note 4, p. 11, in
Ashley Montagu, Coining into Being.

n 4 "RACE" MIXTURE

geniuses, but there are also on the other hand relatively few of
markedly inferior mental calibre. The majority are of a medi-
ocre type, often but little inferior to the inhabitants of small
white communities which have, through force of circum-
stances remained in poverty, ignorance or isolation." 26

ETHNIC MIXTURE IN HAWAII

Hawaii has afforded investigators an excellent opportunity
for the study of the effects of the mixture of different ethnic
groups. Here native Hawaiians, who are, of course, Polyne-
sians, have intermixed with whites of many nationalities
Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, and others. All
these have intermixed with each other, so that in Hawaii there
are literally hundreds of varieties of mixed types. They are all
in process of amalgamating, and it is likely that in the future
the people of Hawaii will become a more or less distinctive
ethnic group. In Hawaii is being repeated what has undoubt-
edly taken place on both greater and lesser scales innumerable
times elsewhere in the world.

Here the evidence is clear that the descendants of the mixed
Hawaiian unions are in many ways superior to their Hawaiian
and non-Hawaiian progenitors. The part-Hawaiians have a
much higher fertility rate than all other ethnic groups, and
they are more robust, while in height, weight, and in their
physical characters, as well as mental characters, they appear
to be intermediate between their Hawaiian and non-Hawai-
ian forbears. 26 The native Hawaiian is inclined to be over-
heavy, a disadvantageous trait which tends to be reduced in
the part-Hawaiian. The distribution of physical traits in the
crosses follow the Mendelian laws of segregation and of inde-
pendent assortment. That is to say, the children of crosses of
the same ethnic groups, in a single family, segregate in their
characters some around the parents, while others resemble

25 Tindale, "Survey of the Half -Caste Problem in South Australia," Proceed-
ings of the Royal Geographical Society, South Australian Branch, session 1940-
41, p. 124.

28 Krauss, "Race Crossing in Hawaii," Journal of Heredity. X.XXI1 (1941),
57 1-78; Adams, Interracial Marriage in fjayaii, pp. 232-^5.

"RACE" MIXTURE 115

the stocks of the grandparents; furthermore, it has been ob-
served that single hereditary characters are often inherited in-
dependently of each other.

As a result of six years of intensive study of the Hawaiian
population, Dr. William Krauss has shown that not the slight-
est evidence of any disharmonies are to be found in the hy-
brids or their descendants and that while there is no particular
evidence of hybrid vigor, the mixed offspring are in every way
satisfactory physical and mental types. 27

Throughout Oceania, including the islands of Melanesia
and Polynesia, aboriginal-white hybridization has been pro-
ceeding for some centuries. 28 Handy, a careful student of
Oceanic affairs, declares that throughout Polynesia the mixed
breed "is one of the greatest assets which govern a commu-
nity, both white and native phases," and that the mixed breed
is "one of the most solid bonds between the white and the
native." 29 This is also the conclusion stated by Krauss for the
special case of Hawaii.

ETHNIC MIXTURE BETWEEN INDIANS AND WHITES

In 1894 Professor Franz Boas published the results of a pio
nee. study on the "half-blood" Indian, in which he showed
that the latter was taller and more fertile than the parental
Indian and white stocks. In many of his physical characters, as
was to be expected, the hybrid Indian presented an interme-
diate appearance. 80 Since increase in stature and in fertility

27 Krauss, ibid. Consult further Reece, "Race Mingling in Hawaii," American
Journal o/ Science, XX (1914), 104-16: Finch, "The Effects of Racial Misce-
genation," in Papers on Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 108-12; Hoffman, "Mis-
cegenation in Hawaii," Journal of Heredity, VIII (1917), 12 ff.; Dunn and

Tozzer," An Anthropometric Study of Hnwaiians of Pure and Mixed Blood,"
Papers o\ the Peabodv Museum of Harvard University, XI (1928), 90-211;
Wisslei, "Growth of Children in Hawaii Based on Observations by Louis R.
Sullivan,' Bermce P Kishop Museum Memoirs, pp. 105-207. For a discordant
view see MacCaughev. "Race Mixture in Hawaii," Journal of Heredity, X
1919). 41-47 and 90-95.

28 For an accoum of some ot these cases see Dover, Half-Caste, pp. 176-87
w Hand\. quoted bv Keesing.

3 Boas. "The Half Blood Indian an Anthropometric Study," Popular Sci-
ence Monthly. XIV '1894), 761-70, reprinted in Boas. Race, Language and
Culture, pp 138-48

n6 "RACE" MIXTURE

are among the most characteristic marks of hybrid vigor
throughout the plant and animal kingdoms, it seems clear
that the hybrid offspring of Indian-white crosses showed the
evidences of hybrid vigor. A similar conclusion is to be drawn
from Sullivan's analysis of Boas's data on mixed and unmixed
Siouan tribes. 81

In a study of Indian-white crosses in northern Ontario, in-
volving O jib way Indians, Cree Indians, Frenchmen, and Eng-
lishmen, Ruggles Gates found the descendants to be of an ad-
mirably hardy type. "They appear to have the hardiness of the
native Indians combined with greater initiative and enter-
prise than the pure Indian would ever show. . . . They push
the fringe of civilization farther north than it would otherwise
extend, and help to people a territory which would otherwise
be nearly empty." The evidence derived from this study, the
author concludes, "serves to show that an intermediate race
may be more progressively adapted to the particular condi-
tions than either of the races from which it sprang." 32

Williams's study of Maya-Spanish crosses in Yucatan, where
much crossing and recrossing has gone on for almost four cen-
turies, shows that after some twelve or thirteen generations
the Maya-Spanish population, judged by any standard of bio-
logical fitness, is a vigorously healthy one. 33

Goldstein's observations on the mestizo population of Mex-
ico, which is largely a mixture of American Indian and Span-
ish, show that the mestizos are taller than the original parental
stocks and more fertile. They are in every way a thoroughly
vigorous group biologically, in spite of the debilitating effects
of chronic poverty and primitive living conditions. 34

The tri-hybrid Seminole Indians of Oklahoma are, as is well
known, the recent descendants of a mixture between runaway

si Sullivan, "Anthropometry of Siouan Tribes," Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, VI (1920), 131-34.

82 Gates, "A Pedigree Study of Amerindian Crosses in Canada/ 1 /. Royal
Anthrop. Inst., LVIII (1928), 530.

SB Williams, "Maya-Spanish Crosses in Yucatan," Papers of the Peabody
Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology, XIII (1931), 1-256.

8* Goldstein, Demographic and Bodily Changes in Descendants of Mexican
Immigrants.

"RACE" MIXTURE 117

Creek Indians, Negro slaves, and whites. The Oklahoma Sem-
inoles have never been studied from the point of view of
ethnic mixture, but they have been studied anthropometri-
cally as a single population by Krogman. 85 From Krogman's
observations and those of his coworkers it is evident that the
modern Seminole population exhibits, in varying degrees,
the characters of all three ancestral types which have gone into
its making. The physical types are, on the whole, good, and
they are often very beautiful; there is not the slightest evi-
dence of degeneration or disharmony in development.

The same is to be said of the recently described Moors and
Nanticokes of Delaware, who are likewise the descendants of
Indian, Negro, and white admixture. Furthermore, these two
groups have been inbreeding for more than two centuries
with no observable ill effects; on the contrary, they appear to
be a very hardy group indeed, who have managed to make a
place for themselves under the most untoward conditions
which have been forced upon them by their exceedingly
"white Christian" neighbors. 86

NEGRO-WHITE CROSSES

The American Negro is, of course, the most obvious and
best-known example of the Negro-white cross. Because of the
extreme differences in pigmentation, hair color and form,
nose form, and eye color, the offspring of Negro-white unions
and of their descendants, afford scientists an excellent oppor-
tunity of judging the effects of such hybridization and shuf-
fling and reshuffling of genes. The studies of Herskovits on
the American Negro 37 and of Davenport and Steggerda on
the Jamaican Negro 38 conclusively show that in his physical
characters the mixed-breed Negro stands intermediate be-
tween the stocks which generated him. In the American Negro,
to be brief, we are developing a distinctively new ethnic type.

as Krogman, The Physical Anthropology of the Seminole Indians.

86 Weslager, Delaware's Forgotten Folk.

87 Herskovits, The American Negro and The Anthropometry of the Ameri-
can Negro.

88 Davenport and Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica.

ii8 "RACE" MIXTURE

This type, there is every reason to believe, is a perfectly good
one by the measure of biological goodness or fitness, that is
to say, by the measure of the organism's ability to meet suc-
cessfully every demand of its environment an ability testi-
fied to by the fact that in the course of a century and a half
the Negro population has increased by thirteen times its orig-
inal number.

Davenport has made the claim that hybridization some-
times produces disharmonies, and he has also asserted that he
has discovered such disharmonies in some of the mixed Ja-
maicans who were examined and measured by Steggerda. In
a work in which a simple table can be headed "Traits in
Which Browns Are Inferior to Blacks and Whites," when the
word "intermediate" would more accurately have described
the facts recorded in the table, one is not surprised to discover
that the findings upon which this assertion rests have been
most strangely exaggerated. More revealing of Davenport's
attitude of mind are the following remarks, which surely de-
serve a prize for something or other. Davenport writes, "the
Blacks seem to do better in simple mental arithmetic and
with numerical series than the Whites. They also follow bet-
ter complicated directions for doing things. It seems a plausi-
ble hypothesis, for which there is considerable support, that
the more complicated a brain, the more numerous its 'associa-
tion fibers,' the less satisfactorily it performs the simple nu-
merical problems which a calculating machine does so quickly
and accurately." 39 Even though reason be outraged at this
running with the hare and hunting with the hound the Blacks
cannot be allowed the virtues of their qualities!

It appears that some hybrid individuals showed a combina-
tion of "long arms and short legs." "We do not know," writes
Davenport, "whether the disharmony of long arms and short
legs is a disadvantageous one for the individuals under con-
sideration. A long-legged, short-armed person has, indeed, to
stoop more to pick up a thing on the ground than one with

s Davenport and Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica, p. 469.

"RACE" MIXTURE 119

the opposite combination of disharmony in the append-
ages." 40

Three out of four brown (hybrid) Jamaicans are cited in
support of this generalization, a generalization which is made
by Davenport as if it applied to his own findings on the Jamai-
can browns as compared to the Jamaican blacks and whites.

Professor H. S. Jennings adopted this generalization and
made it part of the basis of a discussion on the possible ill-
effects of hybridization which constitutes the only unsatisfac-
tory section in an otherwise admirable book. 41

Professor W. E. Castle has very cogently disposed of both
Jennings's and Davenport's generalizations by stating the
plain facts as represented by Davenport and Steggerda's own
figures. Here are the figures:

LIMB PROPORTIONS AND STATURE IN JAMAICANS

Black Brown White

Leg length in cm. 92.5104 92.310.3 92.010.4

Arm length in cm. 57.3 0.3 57.9 0.2 56.8 0.4

Total stature in cm. l 1-6 0.6 170.2 0.5 127.7 -7

It will be seen from these figures that the arm length of the
browns is six tenths of a centimeter greater than in blacks and
1.1 centimeters greater than in whites, and the leg length of
the browns is three tenths of a centimeter less than in blacks.
It is here that the alleged disharmony is presumably to be
found. Now, it should be obvious that the order of the differ-
ences is so small at most not more than 8 millimeters be-
tween brown and white that it could not make the slightest
practical difference in the efficiency of stooping.

40 ibid., p, 471.

*i Jennings, The Biological Basis of Human Nature, p. 280. Jennings has
somewhat modified this in his Genetics, p. 280. The same comment may be
made on Jennings's "Laws of Heredity and Our Present Knowledge of Hu-
man Genetics on the Material Side," in Scientific Aspects of the Race Problem*
pp. 71-72.

120 "RACE" MIXTURE

As Castle has said: "We like to think of the Negro as an in-
ferior. We like to think of Negro-white crosses as a degrada-
tion of the white race. We look for evidence in support of
the idea and try to persuade ourselves that we have found it
even when the resemblance is very slight. The honestly made
records of Davenport and Steggerda tell a very different story
about hybrid Jamaicans from that which Davenport and Jen-
nings tell about them in broad sweeping statements. The for-
mer will never reach the ears of eugenics propagandists and
Congressional committees; the latter will be with us as the
bogey men of pure-race enthusiasts for the next hundred
years/' 42

In a study of the offspring of Negro-white unions made in
the seaports of England and Wales, Fleming found that 10
percent of the hybrids showed a disharmonic pre- or post-
normal occlusion of teeth and jaws. The palate was generally
well-arched, while the lower jaw was V-shaped and the lower
teeth slipped up outside the upper lip, seriously interfering
with speech; this disharmony "resulting where a well arched
jaw was inherited from the Negro side and a badly arched one
from the white side." 43 No other "disharmonies" were ob-
served.

Fleming states that a "badly arched" jaw was inherited from
the white side.

4 2 Castle, "Race Mixture and Physical Disharmonies," Science, LXXI (1930),
603-6. Davenport has leplied to this: "We certainly never drew the conclusion
that the Negro-white cross is inferior to the Negro or the whites; but we did
find some cases of browns that seemed to present greater extremes and some-
times less well-adjusted extremes than either of the parental races. Our
conclusion is not as Castle suggests it is, that the browns 'are a degradation of
the white race.' Our conclusion is given at p. 477: 'While, on the average, the
Browns are intermediate in proportions and mental capacities between
Whites and Blacks, and although some of the Browns are equal to the best
of the Blacks in one or more traits still among the browns there appear to be
an excessive per cent, over random expectation who seem not to be able
to utilize their native endowment.' " "Some Criticisms of 'Race Crossing in
Jamaica/" Science, LXXII (1930), 501-2. In another paper written in the
same year Davenport expresses himself quite clearly on the matter of Negro-
white crosses. These, he writes, seem to be "of a type that should be avoided."
"The Mingling of Races," in Human Biology and Racial Welfare, p. 565.

Fleming, "Physical Heredity in Human Hybrids," Annals of Eugenics, IX
(1Q39). 68.

"RACE" MIXTURE 121

What, precisely, this means is not clear, but it is clear that
such disharmonies were limited to only 10 percent of the cases.
It is also probable that some of these cases merely represent
the expression of inherited defects, not necessarily exhibited
in the jaws of the parents themselves, and that the defect ac-
tually bears no relation whatever to the fact that one parent
was a Negro and the other a white. If this were not so, it would
be expected that more than 10 percent of the hybrids would
exhibit "disharmonies" of occlusion.

The present writer is fully convinced that the whole notion
of disharmony as a result of ethnic crossing is a pure myth.
Certainly there is some evidence of occasional asymmetric in-
heritance in hybrids, but this is so rare that 1 doubt whether
such asymmetries occur any less frequently in the general pop-
ulation than they do among hybrids. The fact seems to be that
the differences between human groups are not extreme
enough to be capable of producing any disharmonies what-
soever.

As a typical example of the loose kind of speculative argu-
mentation which has marred the discussion of human hybrid-
ization, reference may be made to the latest pronouncement
upon the subject. This is from the pen of the late Professor
Charles Stockard, an anatomist who for many years lived in
the "black belt" of the South. In an elaborate work calculated
to throw some light upon the effects of hybridization among
dogs, Stockard writes as follows:

"Since prehistoric time, hybrid breedings of many kinds
have occurred at random among the different races of human
beings. Such race crossings may have tended to stimulate mu-
tations and genie instability, thus bringing about freak reac-
tions and functional disharmonies just as are found to occur
among dogs. The chief difference has been that in dogs a mas-
ter hand has selected the freak individuals according to fancy
and purified them into the various dog breeds. No such force
regulates the mongrel mixing of human beings, and dwarf,
giant, achondroplastic and acromegalic tendencies have not
been selected out or established in pure form. On the con-

122 "RACE" MIXTURE

trary, individuals carrying different degrees of these tenden-
cies are constantly being absorbed into the general human
stock, possibly to render the hybridized races less stable and
less harmonious in their structural and functional complexes
than were the original races from which they were derived.
Mongrelization among widely different human stocks has very
probably caused the degradation and even the elimination of
certain human groups; the extinction of several ancient stocks
has apparently followed very closely the extensive absorption
of alien slaves. If one considers the histories of some of the
south European and Asia-Minor countries from a strictly bio-
logical and genetic point of view, a very definite correlation
between the amalgamation of the whites and the Negroid
slaves and the loss of intellectual and social power in the popu-
lation will be found. The so-called dark ages followed a bril-
liant antiquity just after the completion of such mongrel
amalgamation. Contrary to much biological evidence on the
effects of hybridization, racially prejudiced persons, among
them several anthropologists, deny the probability of such re-
sults from race hybridization in man.'* 44

By "some of the south European and Asia-Minor countries"
Stockard presumably means some of the lands bordering upon
the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Portugal and Spain
on the west -to Turkey on the east. Now, the only lands in this
region in which any appreciable "absorption of alien slaves"
has occurred are Portugal and Spain. What are the facts? In-
terestingly enough, while the population of the Iberian penin-
sula are of exceedingly complex descent, North African Ne-
groes have, from the earliest times, made only a relatively
minor contribution to that descent. Phoenicians, Celts, Ro-
mans, Carthaginians, Teutons, Goths, Normans, Moors of
Arab and Berber origin, and Jews, together with North Afri-
can and some West African Negroes, have in various regions
in differing numbers gone into the making of the populations

44 Stockard, The Genetic and Endocrine Basis /or Differences in Form and
Behavior, pp. 37-38, For an excellent independent criticism of Stockard's views
see Lipschikz, El indioQmericanismo y el problema racial en las dme'ricas, pp.
868-79.

"RACE" MIXTURE 123

of the Iberian peninsula. Far more Negroes were absorbed
into some of those populations in prehistoric times than have
been since, and Negro genes were probably more widely dis-
tributed throughout the populations of Spain and Portugal
when both these nations were at the height of their power
than were absorbed by them after they had embarked upon
the slave trade in the middle of the fifteenth century.

On the basis of such reasoning as Stockard's, the people of
Portugal and Spain should never have been capable of attain-
ing to anything like the degree of civilization which charac-
terized them up to the middle of the seventeenth century, if
Negro genes could possibly exert a deleterious effect upon a
population and its cultural activities. In reality the absorp-
tion or nonabsorption of Negro genes had nothing whatever
to do with the yielding to others of the political and social
leadership which Portugal and Spain had maintained in Eu-
rope. An unprejudiced review of the evidence will show that
this was entirely due to the far-reaching changes in the politi-
cal and social fortunes of Europe as a whole, changes over
which neither of these nations was in a position to exercise
the least control, and also to the peculiar social and economic
organization of the peoples of the Iberian peninsula itself. 45
The loss of the Spanish Armada, for example, seriously un-
dermined both the power and the prestige of Spain. The for-
tunate intervention of a storm saved Britain from being re-
duced to a vassal power and almost instantly reversed the
fortunes and status of the two nations. Did genes have any-
thing to do with the storm? No doubt there are some who
would maintain that they did.

Another case in point, to which Stockard does not refer, is
ancient Greece. The civilization of ancient Greece was, all
the evidence indicates, the creation of a highly hybridized
people. The cranial 46 and cultural 47 evidence leaves little

45 For an illuminating discussion of this see Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth.

46 For a recent analysis see Angel, "Report on the Skeletons Excavated at
Olynthus," in Robinson, Excavations at Olynthus, and "A Racial Analysis of
the Ancient Greeks," Amer. J. Phys., Anthrop. f NJS., II (1944), 329-76.

47 Myres, Who Were the Greeks?

124 "RACE" MIXTURE

doubt of that. The opponents of "mongrelization" would, no
doubt, maintain that the ethnic elements which entered into
the making of the Greeks were of a "desirable" type. But by
what standard is desirability to be measured? Madison Grant
would most certainly not have approved of some of the ele-
ments which entered into the ancestry of Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, and Pericles. It is highly probable that these were
at least partly of Mediterranean origin, not to mention the
possibility of Eurafrican and Alpine elements. It should be
clear that any judgment of desirability must be made on the
objective basis of the results of hybridization, and the facts
suggest that there is no form of human hybridization which
by objective biological standards is undesirable. Those who
take the opposite view have thus far been unable to produce
any evidence in support of their thesis which would withstand
a moment's critical examination.

In individual cases certain unfavorable combinations of
characters may occur, but such combinations are no more fre-
quent under conditions of hybridization than they are under
the opposite conditions. The point is that human populations
are not, like the plants or dogs which the geneticist crosses,
even relatively pure-bred lines or species. The peoples of the
earth are not sufficiently different from one another to pro-
duce the types of extreme or undesirable characters which are
sometimes produced in plant and animal crosses of various
sorts. The differences between men are simply not extreme
enough, a truth which is itself proven by the fact of daily ex-
perience that the offspring of unions between members of
different ethnic groups show no more disharmonious or un-
desirable characters than do offspring of unions between
members of the same ethnic group. The determining factor
in the organization of the new being, the offspring of any
union, is the genetic constitution of the parents, and nothing
else. Since the evidence leads us to believe that no human
group is either better or worse than any other, it should be
obvious that hybridization between human beings cannot lead
to anything but an harmonious biological development.

"RACE" MIXTURE 125

When we turn from Stockard's obiter dicta on hybridiza-
tion to his experimental work, we discover that this suffers
from the serious defect that many of his experimental animals
represented highly selected artificial strains, some of which
were hereditary defectives; such, for example, are the dachs-
hund, the bulldog, and the pekingese. The crossing of such
defective stocks with normal breeds of dogs will certainly re-
sult in a number of defective offspring, and there will gener-
ally be no more disharmony than was present in the original
defective progenitor. To jump from such an effect to the gen-
eral supposition that "race crossings may have tended to stim-
ulate mutations and genie instability, thus bringing about
freak reactions and functional disharmonies just as are found
to occur among dogs," is to abandon the last vestiges of scien-
tific procedure for the hobbyhorse of irresponsibility.

In the first place, under normal conditions such defective
animals would have become extinct within a very short time,
since they could not possibly compete with normal animals.
And in the second place, even if the survival of such animals
could be imagined, such defects as they transmitted would be
due, not to "race" crossing, but simply to the fact that at least
one of the animals involved was defective. It is not "race"
crossing that is the cause of the defect in the offspring, but the
fact that one of the parents was a defective to begin with. As
Castle has written in this connection: "Suppose that a white
man who was affected with Huntington's chorea should marry
a Negro woman and half their children should prove to be
choreic (as in all probability they would), could we ascribe
this unfortunate occurrence to race mixture? By no means,
the same result would have followed had the wife been a white
woman." * 8

To associate defectiveness with any "race" of which he him-
self is not a member is a common device of the racist, but in
fact represents no more than a vicious invention which is thor-
oughly controverted by the facts.

*8 Castle, "Race Mixture and Physical Disharmonies," Science, LXXI (1930),
604.

126 "RACE" MIXTURE

An unprejudiced examination of the American Negro as a
biological type 40 abundantly proves that he meets every test
of biological fitness, while his vitality as measured by repro-
ductive rates under adverse conditions exceeds that of the
white population. 50

The classical study of the descendants of Negroid- white
mixtures is that made at the beginning of this century by Eu-
gen Fischer on the Rehoboth Bastaards of South Africa. They
are represented by some three thousand individuals who are
the descendants principally of Dutch and Low German peas-
ant mixtures with Hottentot women.

If we were asked to name the two human types which would
seem to stand at opposite extremes physically, we should have
to place the Hottentot at one end and the white at the other.
The Hottentot is very short, has peppercorn hair, is quite
glabrous, yellowish, and loosely skinned, steatopygious, and
in many cases characterized by the epicanthic fold commonly
seen in Mongols. If disharmonies were likely to occur any-
where, we should expect to find them here; the fact is, how-
ever, that the Bastaards are an admirably and harmoniously
developed people who show all the evidences of hybrid vigor
most strikingly. They are taller than their parental stocks and
considerably more fertile. 51

These observations are more fully confirmed on a much
larger variety of the inhabitants of South Africa by Lotsy and
Goddijn. These investigators studied the crosses of Bushmen,
Basutoes, Fingoes, Kaffirs, Mongoloids, Indians, whites, and
many others, and their evidence unequivocally points to hy-
brid vigor and perfectly harmonious and often strikingly
beautiful types as the result of such crossings. 52

49 Lewis, The Biology of the Negro; Cobb, "The Physical Constitution of
the American Negro," Journal of Negro Education, III (1934), 340-88; Myrdal,
An American Dilemma, pp. 137-53. See also Chapter XIII of the present
volume.

BO Holmes, The Negro's Struggle for Survival; Lewis, The Biology of the
Negro; Myrdal, An American Dilemma, pp. 157-81.

BI Fischer, Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim
Menschen.

M Lotsy and Goddijn, "Voyages of Exploration to Judge of the Bearing of
Hybridization upon Evolution, I. South Africa," Genetica, X (1928), viii-3i5.

"RACE" MIXTURE 127

In Brazil crossing between Negroes and whites has been
going on for four hundred years. The population has in-
creased by leaps and bounds, and the physical type of the
descendants of such crosses is in every respect biologically and
socially desirable. Innumerable Brazilians of mixed ancestry
have attained the highest distinction in every walk of life. 58

Similarly in Cuba, where conditions somewhat approxi-
mate those existing in Brazil, the descendants of Negro-white
crosses are generally recognized to be of particularly fine
physical type and socially among the most progressive. 54

MONGOLOID-WHITE CROSSES

Rodenwaldt, in a study of the Mongoloid Indonesian na-
tive-white hybrids of the island of Kisar in the Timor archi-
pelago found some evidence of hybrid vigor and no evidence
of disharmony. In their physical and cultural characters the
Kisarese were intermediate between the natives and the
whites and considerably more fertile than either. 55

CHINESE-WHITE CROSSES

Fleming examined 119 children who were the offspring of
Chinese fathers and white mothers. In only one instance was
there any evidence of any asymmetric or disharmonious physi-
cal character in the hybrid. In a fourteen-year-old boy "One
orbit was Chinese in shape, the eye dark opaque brown and
the Mongoloid fold marked. The other orbit was English in
type, eye colour the grey with a brown net so common in Eng-
lish people, and there was no Mongolian fold." 56 Such ab-
normalities of inheritance are obviously extremely rare, as is
suggested both by Fleming's findings and experience.

Japanese-white, Malayan-white, East Indian and white,

G 3 Roquette-Pinto, "Contribuidio a anthropologia do Rrasil," Revista de
Imigracdo e Colonizacao, III (1940); Pierson, Negroes in Brazil; Bilden, "Racial
Mixture in Latin America with Special Reference to Brazil," in (Laidler,
editor) The Role of the Races in Our Future Civilization, pp. 49-54.

s* Personal communication of Professor Angulo y Gonzalez.

55 Rodenwaldt, Die Mestizen auf Kisar.

*> Fleming, "Physical Heredity among Human Hybrids/' Annals of Eugenics,
IX (1939), 59-

128 "RACE" MIXTURE

Arab-white, and Egyptian-white crosses, have not been at all
thoroughly studied, but such evidence as we have indicates
very strongly that the hybrids and the mixed-breeds resulting
from these mixtures are in every way satisfactory types. 67

The evidence here briefly summarized very definitely indi-
cates that human hybridization and ethnic mixture leads, on
the whole, to effects which are advantageous to the offspring
and to the group. Harmful effects, physical disharmonies of
various alleged kinds, are of the greatest rarity, and degen-
eracies do not occur.

In this connection it has often been said that one cannot
get out of a mixture more than one puts into it. This is one
of those facile generalizations which are too easily accepted
by the uncritical. When we combine oxygen and hydrogen,
we obtain water, which is more than each of the two elements
alone could yield. When we combine tin and copper, we ob-
tain an alloy, bronze, which has far greater strength and nu-
merous other superior qualities than the unalloyed metals com-
prising it; that is certainly getting more out of a mixture than
what was put into it. When two pure-bred varieties of plants
or animals unite to produce offspring, the latter often show
many more desirable qualities and characters than the stocks
from which they were derived. Surely "hybrid vigor" repre-
sents the fact that something more has been obtained out of
the mixture of the elements that were originally brought into
association? To maintain the contrary would be to subscribe
to a genetic fallacy. All offspring of unions between human
beings represent the expression of a unique contribution of
genes. Some of these combinations may result in individuals
superior or inferior or similar to the parents, but invariably
one always obtains something different out of the mixture
than what originally entered into it.

As Nabours has put it: "In a considerable number of hy-
brids, to be sure, especially among the higher animals and
man, some of the respective characteristics may be blended
or arranged in mosaics in such manner as to indicate certain

T ibid.; see also Dover, Half-Caste.

"RACE" MIXTURE 129

: the qualities of the component races. Even so, such com-
)sites generally exhibit, in addition, qualities extraneous to
ly shown by the original organisms, and at the same time
une of the properties of the latter are lost in the process. In
iis category probably belongs the mulatto, many of whose
aalities, in spite of certain degrees of blending, are super-
jniently different from the mere sum or mosaic of the several
laracteristics of the white and black races. The respective
roperties of the ass and horse would not, by simple addition,
mosaically, make a mule, and the cattalo is far from display-
ig nothing but the sum or mosaics of the several attributes of
uffalo and cattle. Nearly all the higher plants and animals
hen hybridized and which are not? exhibit extraneous
ualities such that they largely, or completely effect the dis-
militude of the qualities of their several, contributive, pri-
.ary races." 58

All this, of course, does not mean that the emergent is inde-
sndent of the genes that have entered into its making; it is,
L fact, upon the genes contributed by each parent that, other
mditions being equal, the combinations into which they en-
:r to create the new individual will depend.

Now it must be remembered that gene distributions are not

> much a matter of the distribution of the genes of individ-
als as of the distribution of genes within populations. It is
ot, therefore, a matter of speaking in terms of two individ-
als who, characterized by either a superior or a mediocre
isortment of genes, transmit them to their offspring, but of
le continuous interchange and shuffling and reshuffling of
/ery kind of gene within a population to yield a very large
umber of gene combinations. Some of these will be superior

> others; in fact, there will be every possible form of varia-
on within the limits set by the genetic equipment of the
opulation. This is true of all populations. No population
as a monopoly of good genes, and no population has a mo-
opoly of bad genes; normal and defective genes are found
i all populations of all human beings. Furthermore, it is

ss Nabours, "Emergent Evolution and Hybridism," Science, LXXI (1930), 574.

i 3 o "RACE" MIXTURE

most unlikely that the kind of defective genes distributed in
one population will be found to occur in anything like as
great a frequency, if at all, in another population or ethnic
group.

As Jennings writes: "In view of the immense number of
genes carried by individuals of each race, and their separate
history up to the time of the cross, the relatively few defects
that have arisen are almost certain to affect genes of different
pairs in the two. Hence when the races cross, the individuals
produced will receive a normal gene from one parent or the
other in most of their gene pairs; and since the normal gene
usually manifests its effect, the offspring of the cross will have
fewer gene defects than either of the parents." 69 In a later
work Jennings adds: "Thus the offspring of diverse races
may be expected to be superior in vigor, and presumably in
other characteristics. . . . Data on this point are not abun-
dant, but it is probable that hybrid vigor is an important
and advantageous feature of race crosses in man/' 60

Furthermore, genes peculiar to each group are contributed
by the parents to the offspring, and these genes express them-
selves in new traits and characters not possessed by either of
the parents or their stocks. It is in this process that the creative
power of "race" mixture shows itself.

The fact is that all the ethnic groups and varieties of man-
kind are characterized by biologically fit qualities; were this
not so, they could not possibly have survived to the present
time. Hence, when they are crossed, it is not surprising that
the hybrids should show qualities which are capable of pass-
ing every test of biological fitness and efficiency. True hybrids
are, of course, only the first filial generation of crosses; but
since all human hybrids are polyhybrids that is, hybrid for
a very large number of genes hybridization in mixed human

C9 Jennings, The Biological Basis of Human Nature, p. 280.

eo Jennings, "The Laws of Heredity and Our Present Knowledge of Human
Genetics on the Material Side," in Scientific Aspects of the Race Problem, p.
71. As "probable" disadvantages of "race" crossing Jennings refers to Daven-
port and Steggerda's inferences from their observations on Jamaican white
and Negro crosses. Jennings, however, admits that "critical and unambiguous
data on this matter are difficult to obtain for man," p. 72.

"RACE" MIXTURE 131

populations will often extend over a period of many genera-
tions. Thus, because of such polyhybridization over several
generations, the tendency will be to add more and more new
genes to the common stock and for a considerable number of
generations (depending upon the size of the population) to
maintain a high degree of variability or heterogeneity. Cer-
tainly some poor combinations of genes will occur in indi-
vidual cases, resulting in some mediocre individuals, but these
will take their chances with the rest, contributing perhaps a
genius or two, or perhaps a few politicians, to the population
before passing on their way or else being selectively elimi-
nated.

Ernst Kretschmer, the great student of human constitu-
tional typology, found in his study of genius that most gen-
iuses were of mixed ethnic ancestry. 61 He goes on to say: "One
may assume, with some probability, that the rise of lofty civil-
izations, blossoming with genius, at other times and in other
races and nations, was caused by a similar biological process
of cross-breeding. For in individual human biology too, suita-
ble cross-breeding gives rise to richly-developed 'hybrids' who
easily outgrow the parental types from which they have
sprung. The breeding of genius is thus assimilated to the same
process which, in specialist biology, is known as the 'luxuria-
tion' of hybrids [hybrid vigor]. Hence highly developed civil-
izations are usually produced within a definite time interval
after the migrations of peoples and the invasions of conquer-
ing tribes which have gradually mixed themselves with the
native populations." 62

Kretschmer points out that it is an error to assume that the
immigrating or invading group, as such, has brought genius
with it, but rather that the blossoming of a new civilization is
due to hybridization alone. This view would, however, tend
to make the progress of culture dependent on biological fac-

3i Before this two geneticists, East and Jones, had stated that "the great in-
dividuals of Europe, the leaders in thought, have come in greater numbers
from peoples having very large amounts of ethnic mixture." Inbreeding and
Outbreeding, p. 99.

2 Kretschmer, The Psychology of Men of Genius, p. 99.

132 "RACE" MIXTURE

tors, whereas it should be evident that it is cultural hybridiza-
tion, not biological hybridization, which is principally, if not
entirely, responsible for such blossomings of culture.

The more unlike two human mating groups are genetically,
the more likely it is that for many characters the hybrid off-
spring will be superior to either of the parental groups and
will be a mosaic of their characters for the rest. It is far less
likely that the offspring of such matings will exhibit anything
like the frequency of defective characters which occurs in
matings between members of the same ethnic group. This is
due to the fact that most defective genes are carried in the
recessive state and are more likely to be matched within the
carrier's own ethnic group than in some other. Furthermore,
genes for certain desirable characters unique to different eth-
nic groups are, of course, carried in the dominant state, and
the offspring of such crosses will show the effects of the com-
bination of these genes not only in the expression of certain
characters of the parental stocks but also in others which are
themselves unique.

While it may be true of plants that in some cases hybrids
will combine many of the undesirable traits of both parental
stocks, the traits of human beings over a large area of the globe
are such that, when under hybridization they do combine,
there appears to be a gain on the whole rather than a loss in
biological fitness. This is a fact which has not been sufficiently
emphasized, and it is one of the first importance. It would
seem that all the ethnic groups of mankind possess qualities
which under hybridization result, on the whole, in the emer-
gence of novel and biologically fit types, not in reversionary
unfit ones. The latter types are very definitely the rare excep-
tions, which in the course of time are naturally eliminated;
the former survive and reproduce not only their kind but also,
again under conditions of hybridization, new kinds.

It will be seen, then, that the beliefs relating to the alleged
harmfulness of human hybridization are quite erroneous and
that they constitute a part of the great mythology of "race."
The truth is that ethnic group mixture constitutes one of the

"RACE" MIXTURE 133

greatest creative powers in the progress of mankind. Professor
F. H. Hankins has written that "in the ever-changing texture
of racial qualities and the infinite combinations still to be
made there may in the future arise race blends quite as excel-
lent as those which produced the Age of Pericles, the wonder-
ful thirteenth century, the Renaissance, or the present era in
European civilization." 6S It is possible to go even farther than
this and say that the future will see race blends not only "quite
as excellent," but also undoubtedly greatly superior to those
referred to. Superior in the very real sense that they will lack
many of the defective qualities of which all ethnic groups are
today more or less carriers.

We may conclude in the words of a great American biolo-
gist: "So far as a biologist can see, human race problems are
not biological problems any more than rabbit crosses are so-
cial problems. The rabbit breeder does not cross his selected
races of rabbits unless he desires to improve upon what he
has. The sociologist who is satisfied with human' society as
now constituted may reasonably decry race crossing. But let
him do so on social grounds only. He will wait in vain, if he
waits to see mixed races vanish from any biological unfit-

68 Hankins, The Racial Basis of Civilization, p, 351. This work contains an
excellent discussion ot "race" mixture.

64 Castle, "Biological and Social Consequences of Race Crossing," Amer, J.
Phys. Anthrop., IX (1926), 156,

9

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE"

HUMAN BEINGS are exceedingly complex structures, and
it is never at any time an easy thing to analyze the mo-
tives involved in their behavior. The fact is that the
individual himself is rarely able to give a satisfactory account
of the motives for his conduct, since the elements entering
into it are usually both numerous and complex. One should
therefore be wary in attempting to interpret the behavior of
others. This applies with especial force to eugenists. Eugenists
are persons who believe that the human race, or their particu-
lar branch of it, is rapidly decaying and that if the race is to be
made safe for the future, steps must be taken to eliminate the
undesirable decay-producing elements and to bring about a
general improvement in man's physical and mental structure
by selective breeding. Eugenics means good breeding. Galton,
its founder, defined it as "the science of improving stock,
which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mat-
ing but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance
of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give
to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance
of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they other-
wise would have had." J It is quite clear from this definition
that the founder of eugenics was convinced of the existence
of "higher" and "lower," "superior" and "inferior," "races,"
and that he considered it a desirable thing that the "superior"
"races" should prevail over the "inferior" "races," and that as
speedily as possible. Thus, we perceive that implicit in the
eugenic movement from the outset was the doctrine of racism.
Eugenists are, in general, sincerely enthusiastic persons who
are honestly anxious to be of service to their fellows, not to
mention future generations, but they are also very dangerous
persons. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a great

i Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty.

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE" 135

deal of the world's unhappiness is due to well-meaning per-
sons who, possessing a little knowledge, attempt on the basis
of it to make decisions for others whose true nature they do
not understand and whose future it would be impossible for
anyone to predict. It is to be feared that a large number of the
most vocal eugenists fall into this category. Furthermore, it is
known that the sins of some eugenists are less venial than the
sins of those who have merely acted on the basis of half-baked
knowledge. In this country, and elsewhere, eugenics was early
converted into a movement in the service of class interests, as
is so well exemplified by the writings of such men as the late
Madison Grant and Henry Fairfield Osborn, to name but two.
Professor E. G. Conklin writes: "Nowadays one hears a lot of
high sounding talk about 'human thoroughbreds,' which usu-
ally means that those who use this phrase desire to see certain
narrow and exclusive social classes perpetuated by close in-
breeding; it usually has no reference to good hereditary traits
wherever found, indeed such traits would not be recognized if
they appeared outside of 'the four hundred.' Such talk proba-
bly does neither harm nor good; the 'social thoroughbreds'
are so few in number and so nearly sterile that the mass of the
population is not affected by these exclusive classes." 2

So long as no attempt is made to impose such views upon
the population, no great harm can be done. All of us, how-
ever, have some knowledge of the tragic effects of the teaching
of mythological "race" doctrines and of the practice of "race"
hygiene in Germany. Similar attempts have frequently been
made in this country, bills having been introduced into state
legislatures, and passed in thirty of them, making it a criminal
offense or unlawful for persons of different colors or "races"
to intermarry, as well as for those who in any way assist such
a union. 3 Such activities, among others, have caused eugenics
to fall into disrepute among scientific students of genetics, the
science of heredity upon which eugenics is alleged to be based.
The clear stream of science must not be polluted by the murky

2 Conklin, Heredity and Environment, p. 306.
s See Appendix D.

136 EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE"

visions of politicians and the prescriptions of effete castes dis-
tinguished by an hypertrophied sense of their own impor-
tance.

While it is praiseworthy to look forward to and to work for
a more humane humanity and a world with fewer imbeciles,
degenerates, and criminals and greater numbers of highly in-
telligent and healthy individuals, it is quite certain that such
a state could never be achieved by such practices as the euge-
nists have in the past recommended. 4 Inherited disorders, such
as certain types of feeblemindedness, call for sterilization;
common humanity demands that, but one is deceived if one
believes that by such measures feeblemindedness would be
very appreciably reduced. Were every feebleminded indi-
vidual to be sterilized for the next two thousand years, the
reduction in the number of feebleminded individuals in the
population at the end of that time would not exceed 50 per-
cent. It is a very long time to have to wait for such a return.
Superior methods are available, but they do not appeal to
eugenists, who fail to understand that engenics should be a
social science, not a biological one.

In offering their dubious cures for our alleged ills the ex-
tremists among eugenists go even farther and pretend to per-
ceive biological differences between "races.' 1 They arbitrarily
designate as "superior" the "race" or stock to which they hap-
pen to belong and as "inferior" all or most of the others. The
corollary to this is that "race mixture" should be prevented
if "racial" degeneration, according to their definition, is not
to ensue. It is with this aspect of eugenics that we are con-
cerned here.

The term "race," as we have seen, is an unscientific one.
Science knows of nothing in the real world relating to human
beings which in any way corresponds to what this term is
usually assumed to mean, that is, a group of individuals
marked off from all others by a distinctive heredity and the

* I say "past," because at the present time there are very happy evidences
of a return to sanity among eugenists. See, for example, Frederick Osborn's A
to Eugenic?.

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE" 137

possession of particular physical and mental characters. In
this sense there is actually only one race, or one thing which
corresponds to it, and that is the human race, embracing every
human being. It is, of course, clear that there exist certain
groups within the human race which are characterized by dif-
ferences in pigmentation, hair form, and nose form. These
we have already called "ethnic groups/* If, as seems clear, all
human groups are derived from a common ancestry, then it
is also clear that such differences represent the expression of
the combined action of mutant genes, hybridization, natural
and social selection. In any event, such ethnic groups would
by the fact of their very existence prove, in the scale of natural
values, biologically fit. There can, therefore, be no argument
on the score of the physical or biological structure of any
ethnic group unless an appeal be made to purely arbitrary
and irrelevant aesthetic standards. Actually, the argument is
always based on the existence of alleged mental and cultural
differences; these are invariably assumed to be biologically
determined. For such an assumption there is not, as we have
seen, a scrap of evidence. On the contrary, the substantial body
of evidence now available proves that when the members of
any variety of mankind are given for the first time adequate
opportunities, they do, on the average, quite as well as any
who have long enjoyed the advantages of such opportunities.
And as Boas has said, "if we were to select the most intelligent,
imaginative, energetic and emotionally stable third of man-
kind, all races would be represented." 6

There exists no evidence whatever that mental ability and
cultural achievement are functions which are in any way
associated with genes linked with those for skin color, hair
form, nose shape, or any other physical character. It is, there-
fore, from the genetic standpoint, impossible to say anything
about a person's mental ability or cultural achievement on
the basis of such physical characters alone. Cultural differ-
ences between peoples are due to a multiplicity of historical
causes which have nothing whatever to do with genes and

Boas, Anthropology and Modern Life.

i 3 8 EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE"

which are essentially and fundamentally of a social nature;
to the same causes are due the differences in the cultural
conduct of the members of those different cultures. Hence,
on biological grounds and as a consequence of the common
ancestry of all peoples however much they may differ from
one another in their physical characters there is every rea-
son to believe that innate mental capacity is more or less
equally distributed in all its phases in all human groups. If
this is so, and this is a matter which can be tested, there can
be not the slightest justification for the assertion that ethnic
mixture would lead to the intellectual deterioration of any
people. The evidence is all to the contrary, as the frequency
of the phenomenon of hybrid vigor among human beings
proves.

In this connection Huxley has written that he regards it as
"wholly probable that true Negroes have a slightly lower
average intelligence than the whites or yellows. But neither
this nor any other eugenically significant point of racial dif-
ference has yet been scientifically established.

"Further, even were the probability to be established that
some 'races' and some classes are genetically inferior to others
as a fact, it seems certain, on the basis of our present knowl-
edge, that the differences would be small differences in aver-
age level, and that the ranges would overlap over most of their
extent in other words, that a considerable proportion of the
'inferior' group would be actually superior to the lower half
of the 'superior* group. Thus no really rapid eugenic progress
would come of encouraging the reproduction of one class or
race against another." 6

Huxley has committed a common methodological error here
when he gives it as his opinion that true Negroes probably
have a slightly lower average intelligence than whites or yel-
lows. The question must be asked: "Average intelligence
measured by what standard?" Surely, it should at this late date
be evident that intelligence, by whatever standard it is meas-
ured, is always a function of cultural experience as well as of

Julian S. Huxley, Man Stands Alone, p. 53.

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE" 139

inherent quality. The fact that this is so is strikingly brought
out with reference to the Negroes themselves and in relation
to whites by the results obtained in the Army intelligence tests
carried out on Negro and white recruits during the first
World War. These tests showed that Northern Negro recruits
invariably did better on the tests than Southern Negro re-
cruits. The tests also showed that Negroes from certain North-
ern states on the whole did better in the tests than white re-
cruits from almost all the Southern states. Here are the
median scores of the groups compared.

TABLE i

ARMY COMPREHENSIVE ALPHA TESTS.' WHITE RECRUITS FROM

ELEVEN SOUTHERN STATES COMPARED WITH NEGRO

RECRUITS FROM FOUR NORTHERN STATES*

Whites Negroes

Median Median

State Score State Score

Arkansas 35-6o Ohio 45-35

Mississippi 37-65 Illinois 42.25

North Carolina 38.20 Indiana 4 x -55

Georgia 39-35 New York 38.60

Louisiana 41.10

Alabama 4 1 -35

Kentucky 41-50

Oklahoma 43-oo

Texas 43.45

Tennessee 44.00

South Carolina 45-5

a Computed from the data in Yerkes (editor) Psychological Examining in the
United States Army, Tables 205-6, pp. 690 and 691. Data for the Negro re-
cruits was available for only twenty-four out of the forty-eight states and the
District of Columbia. Had data been available for all areas of the United
States it is quite probable that several more states would have shown higher
median scores for Negroes than for whites of some other states.

From this Table it will be seen that the Negroes from Ohio
with a median score of 45.35 did better than the whites of
eleven States, all of which happen to be Southern. The Ne-
groes of Illinois with a score of 42.25 and the Negroes of Indi-
ana with a score of 41.55 did better than the whites from seven

i 4 o EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE"

Southern States, while the Negroes from New York with a
score of 38.60 did better than the whites from three Southern
States. The Negroes from the Northern States who did better
than the Negroes and whites from the Southern States listed,
did so not because of any inborn differences between them,
but because the social and economic opportunities of the
Northern Negroes had been superior to those enjoyed by
Southern Negroes and whites. 7 The results of these tests have
been fully corroborated by tests made on Northern and South-
ern Negro children. 8

It is quite possible that there exist differences in the distri-
bution of the kinds of temperament and intelligence in dif-
ferent ethnic groups, but if such differences exist, they must,
as Huxley has pointed out, be very small. The important fact
is, surely, that every living ethnic group has survived to the
present time because it has been able to meet the demands of
its particular environment or environments with a high order
of intelligence and the necessary physical vigor. This is a truth
which holds for the most isolated group of aborigines as for
the most highly cultured peoples. Measured by such stand-
ards, it seems probable that there are no significant differences
in the intelligence potentials of different ethnic groups.

When eugenists assert that there has been a great increase
in degeneracy, criminality, 9 and feeblemindedness and that

7 When, in a pamphlet entitled The Races of Mankind published in Oc-
tober 1943, the authors, Drs. Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, quoted the
median scores obtained on the Army Intelligence tests by whites from three
Southern states and compared them with the superior scores obtained by
Negroes from three Northern states, and drew the same conclusions as have
been drawn above, a House Military Affairs Committee headed by a Southern
member of the United States Congress caused the suppression of this pamphlet
for use by the United States Army. For an account of the facts see Montagu,
"The Intelligence of Southern Whites and Northern Negroes," Psychiatry,
VII (1944), 183-89. For a complete analysis of the test results see Montagu,
"Intelligence of Northern Negroes and Southern Whites in The First World
War," American Journal of Psychology, Vol. LXVIII (1945).

8 Klineberg, Negro Intelligence and Selective Migration.

9 For an analysis of the problem of crime in our society see Montagu, "The
Biologist Looks at Crime," Annals of the Academy of Political and Social
Science, CCXVII (1941), 46-57; Merton and Montagu, "Crime and the An-
thropologist/' American Anthropologist, XLII (1940), 384-408; Bonger, Race
and Crime; Barnes and Teeters, New Horizons in Criminology.

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE*' 141

the race is rapidly deteriorating, they do so generally without
benefit of a full knowledge of the facts whereof they speak,
for the truth is that except for the ex cathedra manner in
which such statements are usually delivered, little real evi-
dence is ever forthcoming in support of their Jeremiads. The
good will to help is blind and often cruel if it is not guided by
true insight based on knowledge. A physician can be of use
only when he has first carefully investigated the cause of dis-
ease and when it is quite clear what his remedies can effect;
otherwise he is a positive danger.

Dr. Irving Langmuir, in a recent presidential address to the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, ut-
tered a very pertinent criticism in this connection. "We often
hear realists," he said, "deplore the effects of chanty which
tend to keep the unfit alive. We are even told that the whole
course of evolution may be revised in this way. Similar argu-
ments could be used against the surgeon who removes an ap-
pendix or a doctor who uses a sulfa drug to cure pneumonia.

"But what is the need of developing a race immune to ap-
pendicitis or pneumonia if we possess means of preventing
their ill-effects. The characteristics that determine fitness
merely change from those of immunity to those which deter-
mine whether a race is able to provide good medical treat-
ment." 10

Today our many varieties of recording facilities are im-
measurably superior to those in existence a hundred years
ago, and our hospitals, physicians, asylums, police, and in-
centives to crime are vastly more numerous. Yet, in spite of all
these tokens of decline the expectation of life of the average
individual has in modern times practically doubled, while
some of the worst scourges of mankind, such as the vitamin-
deficiency diseases, the venereal diseases, typhoid, typhus, yel-
low fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and many others, have
been brought under control. During this period there has
been such a burgeoning of invention and discovery, such a
flowering of intellectual development, as the world has never

10 Langmuir, "Science, Common Sense and Decency," Science, XCVI1 (1943), 6.

142 EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE"

before witnessed; and all this, presumably, as a sort of efflo-
rescence of the process of deterioration. The swan song of a
world the eugenist never made. Or have the great achieve-
ments of the last hundred years, perhaps, been due to the
genius of a few individuals who have managed to carry the
burden of the mediocrities along with them? This is a view
which is frequently urged by "superior'* persons. It is a sad
commentary upon the understanding and the charity of those
who hold it, and it does scant justice to untold millions of
individuals who were never given a chance, who made good as
best they knew how which was more often than not as best
they were permitted and who died unremembered and
scorned.

Let us give human beings equal social, cultural, and eco-
nomic opportunities, and then we shall be able to judge how
many, if any, genetically inadequate individuals we have
among us. We shall then be in a position to judge the nature of
the biological measures which ought to be instituted to ensure
the welfare of our species. Surely it should be clear that these
measures would not really be biological, but social, and that in
their effects the social advantages would always be greater than
the biological ones. This would, surely, be the most reasonable
procedure, in view of the fact that in most cases it would take
many hundreds of years to eliminate, even partially, a single
defective trait. Only a few generations would be required for
a purely social process to determine whether or not many of the
alleged deteriorative factors which are said to be undermin-
ing the health of the "race" could be eliminated by improv-
ing the social environment. Our present social ills are for the
most part produced, not by genetically inadequate individ-
uals, but by socially inadequate ones, and the remedy for
those ills therefore lies first in the improvement of the social
environments of our species. Our troubles, it must be repeated,
emanate, not from biological defectives, but from social de-
fectives; and social defectives are produced by society, not by
genes. Obviously, it is social, not biological, therapy that is
indicated.

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE" 143

The great fallacy committed by eugenists, and by many
others, is that, having to some extent followed the work of
the geneticists in "breeding certain characters in lower animals
within the walls of a laboratory, they have extrapolated from
the laboratory findings on such lower animals to conditions
vastly more complex and obscure, and which have, more-
over, never formed the subject of experimental investigation.
Human beings are not representative of strains similar to the
highly selected pure strains of mice and rabbits which form
the geneticist's material. Nai've and uninformed persons be-
lieve that if in the geneticist's breeding laboratory the genetics
of a certain character is studied and the experimenter can at
will breed his animals for that character, the same thing can be
done for human beings. Theoretically and under certain ideal
conditions and given scores of generations of selected human
beings this could be done for some, but not for all, charac-
ters. Obviously this is quite impractical; if it were practical, it
would still be open to question whether it would be desira-
ble. 11 Unlike most eugenists, we frankly confess that we do not
possess all the answers. The truth is that we do not yet know
enough about human heredity to meddle with human beings
in order to improve the stock. Two mediocrities may produce
a genius; two geniuses may produce a mediocrity. In view of
the fact that the genes for defective characters are frequently
carried in the recessive condition, it is generally impossible to
spot them in apparently otherwise normal individuals, and it

11 While breeding for certain desirable characters in plants or lower animals,
it frequently happens that certain undesirable characters are developed. The
genes for these, carried as recessives, under normal conditions remain unex-
pressed, but under controlled breeding find expression because of their un-
suspected linkage with the genes of the character considered desirable. For
example, Asdell has recently observed that "all the intersexual goats he had
seen (about 200 now) were hornless. Hornlessness is inherited as a simple dom-
inant. Since then much inquiry and observation have failed to unearth a
single intersex. If they exist, they must be very rare. This suggests that there
is a close linkage between the two genes, an important point economically,
since selection for hornlessness has been practiced by pedigree goat breeders
for some time. The goat breeders have evidently been increasing the gene
frequency for intersex by selecting for hornlessness and are thus doing them-
selves harm." Asdell, "The Genetic Sex of Intersexual Goats and a Probable
Linkage with the Gene for Hornlessness," Science, XCIX (1944), 124.

144 EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE"

is in most cases therefore impossible to predict when they are
likely to crop out. Selective breeding, as understood by the
eugenist, is inbreeding, and that is a notoriously dangerous
process, for by such means the chances are greatly increased of
bringing together recessives of a character detrimental to the
organism. By outbreeding such recessives become associated
with dominants and therefore remain unexpressed. When
selection is practiced on animals, we keep only those animals
which exhibit a particular character; the others, showing un-
desirable characters, are killed. Mankind, it is very much to
be feared, is not to be saved by being treated like a lot of race
horses or a strain of dogs, at the fancier's discretion. Human
beings must be treated like human beings first and only sec-
ondarily, if at all, as if they were animals; for the ills from
which our particular sample of mankind suffers result from
the misuse of man's capacities for being human. Those ills
are not due to the totally irrelevant fact that man is a member
of the animal kingdom subject to the laws of genetics as is any
other mammal.

In effect eugenists tell us that by random mating defective
characters are accumulated in the recessive state until the
whole population becomes affected. The defects so carried will
then become expressed and will wreak havoc upon such a
population/ Upon this kind of fantastic reasoning Dobzhansky
has made the following adequate comment:

"It is not an easy matter to evaluate the significance of the
accumulation of germinal changes in the population geno-
types. Judged superficially, a progressive saturation of the
germ plasm of a species with mutant genes a majority of which
are deleterious in their effects is a destructive process, a sort of
deterioration of the genotype which threatens the very exist-
ence of the species and can finally lead only to its extinction.
The eugenical Jeremiahs keep constantly before our eyes the
nightmare of human populations accumulating recessive genes
that produce pathological effects when homozygous. These
prophets of doom seem to be unaware of the fact that wild
species in the state of nature fare in this respect no better than

EUGENICS, GENETICS AND "RACE" 145

man does with all the artificiality of his surroundings, and
yet life has not come to an end on this planet. The eschatologi-
cal cries proclaiming the failure of natural selection to operate
in human populations have more to do with political beliefs
than with scientific findings." 12

Certainly we could do a great deal to reduce the number
of the hopelessly defective among us. It is also important to
realize that thousands upon thousands of seriously defective
individuals are today alive who under natural conditions
would not have survived long. It should, however, be clear
that wherever in an ethnic group or nation such individuals
exist they constitute a problem which can be attacked by social
means alone social means based upon humane social princi-
ples and sound scientific knowledge. To proceed on the basis
of one without the other would be dangerous and undesirable.

It is among the white peoples of the earth that there are
the most defectives. The materially less advanced peoples of
the earth generally kill off their defectives as soon as the
defect, or anything approximating a defect in their eyes, be-
comes apparent. Such heroic measures are, fortunately, re-
placeable by more effective means of prevention; this is a mat-
ter for each people to determine for itself, following proce-
dures agreed upon preferably in international conference. At
the present time the normal healthy individual is in all ethnic
groups far more numerous than the defective individual, and
the chances are excellent that crossbreeding between such
groups will decrease rather than increase the incidence of
defectives. Hence, we may conclude that there is nothing in
the nature of any ethnic group, taken as a whole, which could
upon either genetic pr eugenic grounds be construed as lead-
ing to any bad effects under crossing.

In conclusion, then, it would seem evident that until man
has put his social house in order, it would be unwise for him
to indulge in any strenuous biological exercises, for a rickety
house on shaky foundations is not the proper place for such
exercises.

12 Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species* ist ed., p. 126.

10

'RACE" AND CULTURE

>^^v UESTIONS often asked are: "Why is it that the cultures
I of different 'races* differ so much from one another? Is

7^^ this due to the fact that 'race' and culture are insepara-

^^^bly connected?"

The answer to these questions is really quite simple. Cul-
tures differ from one another to the extent to which the experi-
ence of the interacting group has differed. By "experience" I
mean anything that an individual or a group of individuals
has undergone or lived, perceived or sensed. No matter with
what variety of mankind we may be concerned or with what
groups of a particular variety, culture is in its broadest and
fundamental sense, not merely an aspect, but a function of
experience. As Eric Kahler says, "Historical evidence proves
beyond doubt that the exact opposite of what the so-called
race theory pretends is true: any decisive advance in human
evolution has been accomplished not by breeds that are pure
either mentally or physically, not by any cultural inbreeding,
but by an intermixture, by mutual impregnation of different
stocks and cultures." x

The reason the cultures of other varieties of man are so
different from our own is that they have been exposed to
experiences which differ as considerably from our own as do
the cultures in question. If you or I, with our present genetic
background, had been born and brought up among a group of
Australian aborigines, we should be, culturally, Australian
aborigines, though physically we should have remained mem-
bers of our own ethnic group. For experience is determined by
the place and the culture in which groups and individuals
live, and for this reason groups and individuals belonging to
different cultures will differ mentally from one another. Our
physical structures would not have varied significantly, be-

i Kahler, Man the Measure, p. 30.

"RACE" AND CULTURE 147

cause they were for the most part genetically determined by
our present parents; but our cultural equipment would have
been that of the Australian aborigines. Why? Because culture
and by "culture" I understand the customs, ideals, and ma-
terial products of a particular society is something that one
acquires by experience, unlike one's physical appearance,
which one acquires through the action, for the most part, of
inherited genes; the culture of individuals, as of groups, will
differ according to the kinds of experience which they have
undergone. The culture of different peoples, as of different
individuals, is to a very large extent a reflection of their past
history or experience. This is a point which is worth more
than laboring. If the cultural status of any variety of man is
determined merely by the kind of experience which it has
undergone, then it is evident that by giving all people the op-
portunity to enjoy a common experience supposing for the
moment that this were desirable all varieties would become
culturally and mentally equal, that is, equal in the sense that
they would have benefited from exposure to the same kind of
experience, always allowing, of course, for the fact that no
two individuals can ever be alike in their reception of and
reaction to the same experience and that there will always,
very fortunately, continue to exist great differences between
individuals. There can be very little doubt that genetic dif-
ferences in temperament and intellectual capacity exist be-
tween the individuals comprising every variety of mankind, no
two individuals in this respect ever being alike; but it takes the
stimulus of a common experience to bring them out and to
render them comparable. It is because of differences in cul-
tural experience that individuals and groups differ from one
another culturally, and it is for this reason that cultural
achievement is an exceedingly poor measure of the value of
an individual or of a group.

For all practical purposes, and until evidence to the con-
trary is forthcoming, we can safely take cultural achievement
to be the expression merely of cultural experience. Obviously,
all learned activities are culturally, not biologically, deter-

148 "RACE" AND CULTURE

mined, whether those activities be based upon physiologic
urges or traditional practices. The generalized urges which all
human beings inherit in common continue to be present in all
human beings in all cultures; but how these urges are per-
mitted to operate and how they are satisfied is something
which is determined by tradition and varies not only in dif-
ferent cultures but in different groups within the same cul-
ture. For example, one of the fundamental urges which we
all inherit is the urge to eat. Now, different human groups,
to whom the same foodstuffs may or may not be available, not
only eat different foods, but prepare them in unique ways,
and consume them, with or without implements, in various
ways, usually established only by custom. The faculty of
speech is biologically determined, but what we speak and how
we speak is determined by what we hear in the culture in
which we have been culturalized. Human beings everywhere
experience when they are tired, the desire to rest, to sit down,
to lie down, or to sleep; but the manner in which they do all
these things is culturally determined by the customs of the
group in which they live. Many other instances will doubtless
occur to the reader. The point to grasp here is that even our
fundamental biological urges are culturally controlled and
regulated or culturalized and that their very forms and ex-
pressions, not to mention satisfactions, are molded according
to the dictates of tradition.

In view of the tremendous number of different cultural
variables which enter into the structure and functioning of
different groups and the individuals composing them, it is
surely the most gratuitous, as it is the most unscientific, pro-
cedure to assert anything concerning assumed genetic condi-
tions without first attempting to discover what part these cul-
tural variables play in the production of what is predicated.
Obviously, no statement concerning the mentality of an in-
dividual or of a group is of any value without a specification
of the environment in which that mentality has developed.
The introduction of genetics as the deus ex machina of ge-
netics to account for the cultural differences between people

"RACE" AND CULTURE 149

may be a convenient device for those who must do everything
in their power, except study the actual facts, to find some sort
of support for their prejudices, but it is a device which
will hardly satisfy the requirements of an efficient scientific
method. Such devices must be accepted in a charitable spirit
as the perverse efforts of some of our misguided fellows to
conceal the infirmities of their own minds by depreciating the
minds of others. John Stuart Mill, almost one hundred years
ago, in 1848, in his Principles of Political Economy, put the
stamp upon this type of conduct very forcibly; he wrote, "Of
all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the
effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the
most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and
character to inherent natural differences/' While the number
of people guilty of this vulgar error has greatly increased since
Mill's day, the number who know it to be false has also greatly
increased, and there is no need of despair for the future. The
facts which are now available concerning the peoples of the
earth render it quite clear that they are all very definitely
brothers under the skin.

It is, perhaps, too much to expect that those who have been
educated in the contrary belief will accept such a view, but the
least we can do is to provide the children in our schools with
an honest account of the facts instead of filling their guiltless
heads with the kinds of prejudice that we find distributed
through so many of the books and so much of the teaching
with which they are provided. Surely, a sympathetic under-
standing of people who behave "differently" and look "dif-
ferent" cannot help but broaden one's horizons and lead to
better human relationships all around. Socially, this is, of
course, greatly to be desired, and in the United States a be-
ginning has already been made in this direction in several
American cities. 2 Such enterprises, however, must be multi-
plied several thousand times. Here, obviously, there is a great
deal of work to be done.

But let us return to our main discussion, for though school

2 See Appendix A.

150 "RACE" AND CULTURE

children and others have frequently heard of physical relativ-
ity, few, if any, children, and hardly anyone else, ever encoun-
ter the concept of cultural relativity. 3 From the standpoint of
the well-being and happiness of mankind the latter is a vastly
more important conception to grasp than the former. By "cul-
tural relativity" I mean that all cultures must be judged in
relation to their own history, and all individuals and groups in
relation to their cultural history, and definitely not by the
arbitrary standard of any single culture such, for example, as
our own. Judged in relation to its own history, each culture
is seen as the resultant of the reactions to the conditions which
that history may or may not record. If those conditions have
been limited in nature, so will the culture reflecting their
effects. If the conditions have been many and complex in
character, then the culture will reflect that complexity. Cul-
ture is essentially a relation which is the product of the inter-
action between two correlates the one a plastic, adaptable,
sensitive, biological being, the other simply experience. If we
agree that mankind is everywhere plastic, adaptable, and sensi-
tive, then we can only account for the mental and cultural
differences between the varieties of mankind on the basis of
different experiences. And this, when everything is taken into
consideration, seems to be the principal explanation of the
mental and cultural differences which exist between the varie-
ties of man. Let me give one or two examples of cultural rela-
tivity, as it were, in action.

Five thousand years ago the ancestors of the present highly
cultured peoples of Europe were savages roaming the wilds of
Europe. The ancestors of the modern Englishman were living
in a Stone Age phase of culture, painting their bodies with
woad and practicing all sorts of primitive rites, being cul-
turally about equivalent to the Australian aboriginal a state
in which they continued with little change for more than three
thousand years, until they were discovered and conquered by

s For an illuminating exposition of cultural relativity see Benedict, Patterns
Of Culture.

"RACE" AND CULTURE 151

the Romans in the first century of our era. 4 Five thousand years
ago Europe was inhabited by hordes of savages, at a time when
the kingdoms of Africa and the Babylonian Empire were at
their height. Babylon has long since passed into history, and
the kingdoms of Africa have undergone comparatively little
change; but five thousand years ago and less, the natives of
these great cultures could have looked upon the Europeans
as savages equal to beasts and by nature completely incapable
of civilization and hence better exterminated lest they pol-
lute the. "blood" of their superiors. Well, whatever sins the
Europeans have since committed, they have at least shown that
given sufficient time and experience they were capable of
civilization to a degree not less than that to which Babylon
and the kingdoms of Africa attained.

Here we have an example of cultural relativity. If we use
time as our framework of reference, we might ask: "Since the
Africans have had a much longer time than we have had to
develop culturally, why haven't they developed as far as we
have done?" Disregarding the dubious notion that any human
group has enjoyed a longer time in which to develop than any
other, the answer is that time is not a proper measure to apply
to the development of culture or cultural events; it is only a
convenient framework from which to observe their develop-
ment. Cultural changes which among some peoples it has
taken centuries to produce, are among other peoples often
produced within a few years. 5 The rate of cultural change is
dependent upon many different factors, but the indispensable
and necessary condition for the production of cultural change
is the irritability produced by the stimulus of such new ex-
periences; cultural change is exceedingly slow. Hence, if new
experience is the chief determinant of cultural change, then

* Many Romans had an extremely low opinion of the mental capacities of
the Britons. Thus, Cicero, writing to Atticus, says, "Do not obtain your slaves
from Britain, because they are so stupid and so utterly incapable of being
taught that they are not fit to form part of the household of Athens."

c Sorokin and Merton, "Social Time: a Methodological and Functional
Analysis," American Journal of Sociology, XLII (1937), 615-29; Sorokin,
Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time, pp. 158-225.

i 5 2 "RACE" AND CULTURE

the dimension by which we may most efficiently judge cul-
tures is that of the history of the experience which has fallen
to the lot of the cultures observed. In other words, to evaluate
cultural events properly one must judge them by the measure
of experience viewed through the framework of time. 6 We of
the Western world have packed more experience into the past
two thousand years than has probably fallen to the lot of the
Australian aborigines, as well as other peoples, throughout
their entire history.

Experience, or variety of cultural contacts, not time, is the
all-important factor. It would obviously be wrong to expect an
Australian aboriginal to behave like an Oxford man, but were
he given all the cultural advantages of the Oxford man there
can be very little doubt but that he would do at least as well.
It has already been pointed out that when Caesar set foot in
Britain the ancestors of the Englishman were culturally about
equivalent to the Australian aboriginal. Following the Roman
conquest the Britons enjoyed the advantage of frequent and
close contacts with the peoples of Europe, the fructifying in-
fluence of such contacts being the chief factor responsible for
raising them from the level of a horde of barbarians. The
Australian aboriginal, on the other hand, has been almost
completely isolated upon his continent for countless genera-
tions without benefit of anything like such contacts with the
cultures of other peoples. No benevolent Caesar has ever vis-
ited their shores, yet they have been able to build up a culture
which is a perfect adaptation to the conditions in which it has
had to operate. It is not without a moral to reflect that Rome
did better by its subject peoples than Britain and its colonies
have ever done by theirs and that had the Romans treated the
Britons as the Britons have in quite recent times treated stflne
of their subject peoples, it is doubtful whether by this time
there would be any Britons left. 7

Montagu, "Social Time: a Methodological and Functional Analysis,"
American Journal of Sociology, XLIV (1938), 282-84.
* One may recall the brutal and deliberate extinction of Tasmanian aborigi-

"RACE" AND CULTURE 153

It should be clear from what has been said above that any
judgments of value we may attempt to make between our own
culture, whatever that may be, and that of other peoples will
be quite invalid unless they are made in terms of experience.
Bearing this cardinal principle in mind, we shall be able to
steer a clear course.

If the essential physical differences between the varieties of
mankind are limited to superficial characters, such as color of
skin, form of hair, and form of nose, and the cultural and
mental differences are due merely to differences in experi-
ence, then from the socio-biological standpoint all varieties of
mankind must be adjudged fundamentally equal; that is to
say, equally good and efficient in a biological sense and in
cultural potentiality. All normal human beings are born as
culturally indifferent animals; they become culturally dif-
ferentiated according to the social group into which they hap-
pen to be born. Some of the culturally differentiating media
are neither as complex nor as advanced as others; the individ-
uals developed within them will be culturally the products of
their cultural group. As individuals, they can no more be
blamed or praised for belonging to their particular group
than a fish can be either blamed or praised for belonging to
his particular class in the vertebrate series. Culture, the cul-
ture of any group, is more or less determined by accidental
factors, which the group, as a group, has usually done little to
bring about. Members of the more advanced cultures have
merely been luckier in that they have had broader experience
and more stimulating contacts than members of the less ad-
vanced cultures. Boas has said: "The history of mankind
proves that advances of culture depends upon the opportuni-
ties presented to a social group to learn from the experience
of their neighbors. The discoveries of the group spread to
others and, the more varied the contacts, the greater are the
opportunities to learn. The tribes of simplest culture are on

nes, the cruel and ungrateful treatment of Australian aborigines and the peoples
qf the Uganda and Kenya colony. See Russell, Colour, Race and Empire.

i 5 4 "RACE" AND CULTURE

the whole those that have been isolated for very long periods
and hence could not profit from the cultural achievements of
their neighbors/' 8

In short, the history of mankind teaches us that there is no
inherent tendency in any group of mankind, which distin-
guishes it from any other, to develop from a state of "bar-
barism" to one of "high culture." It is only under certain
culturally stimulating conditions, which are for the most part
accidentally determined, that any group will ever advance to
a state of high culture. In the absence of such conditions no
human group will ever advance beyond the state of culture
determined by the totality of the conditions operative upon
it. That should be obvious.

It has often been argued that "racial" enmities between
men will disappear only when all physical "racial" differences
between them have been obliterated. This is a fallacious argu-
ment for the simple reason that the real source of "racial" hos-
tilities is not physical, but cultural. It would be equally er-
roneous to argue from this that such hostilities will therefore
disappear only with the obliteration of all cultural differences
between men.

The world would be immensely the poorer for such a cul-
tural leveling, and such a process would not, in any event,
bring about the desired effect. Perfection of man's nature and
achievements, it cannot be too often emphasized, is not ob-
tained by the ascendancy of one form of excellence, but by
the blending of what is best in many different forms; by har-
monizing differences, not by rendering them more discordant.
Stressing superficial differences between people only helps to
maintain the illusion that there may be more fundamental
differences behind them. What in truth and in justice re-
quires to be done is to stress the fundamental kinship of all
mankind; to stress the likenesses which we all bear to one
another, and to recognize the essential unity in all mankind
in the very differences which individuals of all ethnic groups
display. The world must be reestablished as a vast community

s Boas, "Racial Purity," Asia, XL (1940), 231-34.

"RACE" AND CULTURE 155

in which every ethnic group is freely permitted to give as well
as to receive. Such an ideal will never be achieved by the ig-
norant and vicious stressing of differences, but by the broader,
saner, and humaner sympathetic stressing of their funda-
mental likenesses, and, finally, by the utilization and inter-
change of those very differences to strengthen each other in
living a fuller, a more varied, a more interesting, and a more
peaceful life.

11

"RACE" AND WAR

IT is NOW more than seventy years since that fatal morning
when a dust-laden Prussian officer cantered into Paris at
the head of a small advance party of Uhlans, thus signaliz-
ing the capitulation of the French and the unequivocal vic-
tory of the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Forty
years later this self-same Prussian officer, now a general, ca-
reered into Europe with a book which at once attained uni-
versal notoriety. This book was entitled Germany and the
Next War. Few books have before or since been so fervidly
and widely discussed. In England, at any rate, the book passed
through more than a score of impressions in as many weeks.
As a child, then living in London, I well remember the sensa-
tion it caused and how often I saw it in the most unexpected
places. Since those days I have learned that the volume used
to be kept on tap in the precincts of those lesser parliaments,
the pubs, where men who "talked politics" could freely con-
sult it over a tumbler of beer and a pipe. In this book the
author, General Friedrich von Bernhardi, boldly threw down
the gauntlet to the world and, virtually with saber in hand,
called upon the German people to protest against the "aspira-
tions for peace which seem to dominate our age and threaten
to poison the soul of the German people/'

It is understandably rather hard for an iron-headed soldier,
after some forty years of comparative inactivity, to recall an
event as stirring as the entry at the head of a victorious army
into a defeated enemy's capital without feeling that if things
were not actually going to the dogs, at least it was high time
that something was done to prevent the possibility. And so,
in order to convince the German people of the "unnatural-
ness" of that "inactivity which saps the blood from a nation's
sinews," von Bernhardi did something that he had never done
before, he wrote and published a popular propagandistic

"RACE" AND WAR 157

book, making the pen, as it were, temporarily do service for
the sword and ink for blood. "War/* declared von Bernhardi,
"is a biological necessity"; it "is as necessary as the struggle of
the elements in Nature"; "it gives a biologically just decision,
since its decisions rest on the very nature of things." "The
whole idea of arbitration represents a presumptuous encroach-
ment on the natural laws of development," for "what is right
is decided by the arbitrament of War." In proof whereof such
Darwinian notions as "the struggle for existence," "natural
selection," and "survival of the fittest" are invoked with a
loud fanfare of trumpets. According to von Bernhardi, it is
plainly evident to anyone who makes a study of plant and
animal life that "war is a universal law of Nature." l

This declaration and fortification of Germany's will-to-war
for it had the highest official sanction and approval was
published in 1912. Two years later the greatest holocaust the
world had yet known was launched upon its ghastly way by
those

. . . vultures sick for battle
Those bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Those crows perched on the murrained cattle,
Those vipers tangled into one,

the confused, inhuman militaristic von Bernhardis and the
other legislators of a victimized Europe.

The first World War came to an end twenty-seven years
ago, having cost the lives of thirteen million men; eight mil-
lion were slaughtered upon the field of battle, and ten mil-
lion civilians died either directly or indirectly as a result of
the war. As for the maimed and wounded combatants, these
amounted to a mere twenty million. The cost of running this
fracas amounted to $125,000,000 a day during the first three

i Germany and the Next War, pp. 16-37. Compare with this the following
passage from the recently published work by a member of the ruling class of
contemporary England. "War, however much we hate it, is still the supreme
agent of the evolutionary process. Blind, brutal and destructive, it remains
the final arbiter, the one test mankind has yet contrived of a nation's fitness
to survive." Lord Elton, Saint George or the Dragon.

158 "RACE" AND WAR

years and $224,000,000 a day during 1918, the total cost of
the killing amounting to some four hundred billion dollars.

This year considerably more than the total income of the
governments of the world will be spent upon killing. The war
that has for so many years appeared inevitable is now tragically
with us, and although most human beings now living, with
the exception of some militarists, can see neither sense, good,
nor anything but misery in war, there are many who, like von
Bernhardi, continue to aver that war has its biological justi-
fication. Among these is my old friend and teacher Sir Arthur
Keith, who in several recent articles 2 maintains that the im-
pulses which lead men to aggressive and defensive wars are
"nature's mechanisms for preserving the individual and the
tribe or nation" and "make individuals and nations willing
to risk life itself to further the means and opportunities of
life." In all theories of this kind "race" and "race" prejudice
are conceived by their proponents to play a basic and "nat-
ural" part.

Sir Arthur Keith's opinions upon this subject first came
into prominence with the publication of his Rectorial Ad-
dress to the students of Aberdeen University in iggi. 3 In the
present chapter I propose to take Sir Arthur Keith's views
on the nature of war and its relation to "race" prejudice and,
treating them as representative of the "race-prejudice-
biological-nature-of-war" school, subject them to a brief criti-
cal examination. Keith begins by declaring his firm conviction
that "prejudices are inborn; are part of the birthright of every
child." These prejudices "have been grafted in our natures
for a special purpose an evolutionary purpose." "They are
essential parts of the evolutionary machinery which Nature
employed throughout eons of time to secure the separation of
man into permanent groups and thus to attain production of

2 Keith, "Must a Rationalist be a Pacifist?" The Truth Seeker, LXVI (1959),
33-34; "Nationalism," Sunday Express (London), April, 1940, pp. 61-62; a
series of about twenty articles headed "An Anthropologist in Retirement," in
The Literary Guide, (London) LVIII (1943) and LIX (1944). For the views
of the American war-mongers see Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American
Thought 1860-1915.

3 Keith, The Place of Prejudice in Modern Civilization.

"RACE" AND WAR 159

new and improved races of Mankind/' "Nature endowed her
tribal teams with this spirit of antagonism for her own pur-
poses. It has come down to us and creeps out from our mod-
ern life in many shapes, as national rivalries and jealousies and
as racial hatreds. The modern name for this spirit of antag-
onism is race-prejudice." "Race-prejudice, I believe," con-
tinues Keith, "works for the ultimate good of Mankind and
must be given a recognized place in all our efforts to obtain
natural justice in the world." Here, sadly, we may recall von
Bernhardi's "war renders a biologically just decision, since its
decisions rest on the very nature of things." It is the same argu-
ment, endlessly repeated, in almost the same words.

And now for the passage from Keith which has gained such
widespread notoriety: "Without competition Mankind can
never progress; the price of progress is competition. Nay, race
prejudice and, what is the same thing, national antagonism,
have to be purchased, not with gold, but with life. Nature
throughout the past has demanded that a people who seeks
independence as well as peace can obtain these privileges only
in one way by being prepared to sacrifice their blood to
secure them. Nature keeps her orchard healthy by pruning;
war is her pruning hook. We cannot dispense with her serv-
ices. This harsh and repugnant forecast of man's future is
wrung from me. The future of my dreams is a warless world." 4

Essentially similar views were expressed by Sir Arthur Keith
in his Robert Boyle Lecture Nationality and Race, published
twelve years earlier, 5 and have been repeated by him as re-
cently as 1944. Now, unlike von Bernhardi, Sir Arthur Keith
is a distinguished physical anthropologist and, as his friends
well know, a man of the noblest and most generous nature,
who is himself as guiltless of anything resembling "race*' prej-
udice as a man could well be. Nevertheless, in his treatment
of the subject of "race" prejudice and war the fact is unfor-
tunately betrayed that he has overstepped the frontiers of his
own particular field, a field to which he has made lasting con-

* Ibid., p. 50. 5 Keith, Nationality and Race.

Keith, see The Literary Guide for the year 1944.

i6o "RACE" AND WAR

tributions. Charles Singer has well said that "even profes-
sional men of science, when they pass beyond the frontiers of
their own special studies, usually exhibit no more balanced
judgment or unprejudiced outlook than do non-scientific men
of comparable social and educational standing." Sir Arthur
Keith's views on war and "race" prejudice may be taken as a
case in point.

What, we may ask to begin with, is this "Nature," always, it
is to be observed, spelled with a capital N? Keith's Nature is
apparently a very intelligent being, working things out pur-
posefully with much premeditated thought. I use the term
"intelligent" here in a generic sense to cover the operations
of what is conventionally understood as the intellect; I make
no comment on the quality of that supposed intelligence, be-
yond saying that an intellect which can conceive of no better
device to improve its breed than by warfare must be a very
poor intellect indeed. For surely the biological vitality of a
species can be preserved and improved by many immeasura-
bly more effective means than this means which do not
necessitate or require the annihilation of a single individual.
But what, in fact, is this Nature of von Bernhardi and Keith
which, according to them, justifies "race" prejudice and ren-
ders war a biological necessity?

Apparently it is an anthropomorphism akin to the elan-
vital of Bergson or the "life-force" of Bernard Shaw. In other
words, it would appear to be some form of directing Godhead
with the capital G in very much the old style, divested here
and there of a few sacraments and perfectly clean shaven, but
otherwise much the same. Voltaire's jibe that if God had
made men after his own image they had returned the compli-
ment is as appropriate a truth today as it ever was. Nature or
God today is an anthropologist as well as a mathematical physi-
cist sometimes an entelechist and often enough merely a set
of differential equations, unlimitedly limited and with an in-
finite number of functions at one and the same time, but if
the truth were really known, merely a set of conditioned re-
flexes in the cosmic movement continuum. In fact, Nature

"RACE" AND WAR 161

may mean anything, according to the whim of the user. Na-
ture, says Aristotle, makes some men slaves and others free. In
Nature, says Hobbes, "the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short"; it is a condition of "war of every man
against every man," in which "the notions of right and wrong,
justice and injustice have no place" and "force and fraud are
the two cardinal virtues." "The state all men are naturally in,"
replies Locke, is "a state of perfect freedom to order their ac-
tions ... as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of
nature ... a state of equality." "Nature," writes Words-
worth, "to me was all in all, she never did betray the heart that
loved her." "Nature," rejoins Tennsyson, "red in tooth and
claw, shrieks against the creed of man." And as Professor A. F.
Pollard has remarked of these antinomies, "Some see red,
others see God, it all depends upon the kingdom that is
within them." In fact, Nature is the name we give to the pro-
jection of the totality of our ignorance concerning the forces
which are conceived to be involved in or responsible for the
generation of life and its maintenance. Nature is not a "thing-
in-itself" which operates upon other things; the term denotes
rather, if it denotes anything at all, an artificial construct
whose purpose is to serve as a general stereotype for our igno-
rance, in addition to serving as a deus ex machina to which, in
a quandary, we may appeal in order to be comfortably relieved
of our perplexities. For most people to say that a thing is "nat-
ural" explains it. But does it? What do we mean by "natural"?
Prejudices are natural according to Keith and others, prose
according to Monsieur Jourdain, warfare according to von
Bernhardi, and the golden lie according to Plato and some of
his modern successors. Nature, it is said, is the universe of
things as made or produced. Nature, it is further added, op-
erates according to definite laws. All, in fact, is determined
by law. The movements of the planets are determined by laws
as immutable as those which determine the behavior of a dog
or a man. But all this is mythical.

The universe, as far as we know, is composed of a system of
ever-changing relations, in the form, for example, of gases,

162 "RACE" AND WAR

stresses, forces, strains, velocities, dimensions, substances, and
so forth, truly ad inftnitum. Nothing in it is fixed; all is flux.
Between certain limits of infinity, that is, in a given space-
time continuum, the relations of certain planetary velocities,
for example, may remain (relatively) constant. The recurring
averages in which these relations manifest themselves may be
calculated to a high degree of probability, and when so cal-
culated they may be stated as laws. These laws are always prob-
ability laws, and are valid only as long as the relations of the
planetary velocities, as well as numerous other factors, remain
(relatively) constant. Should any of these relations change,
the old laws will have to be modified, or entirely new ones will
have to be elaborated.

With this in mind we may proceed farther. A unicellular
organism living at the bottom of a stagnant pool and en-
vironed by a stable universe of stimuli will tend to undergo
little change as long as the constancy of these stimuli persists,
but modify its relations, the form and nature of the stimuli
acting upon it, alter its environment, and if you go on long
enough let us say for a few hundred thousand million years
sufficiently and adequately varying the nature of the en-
vironmental stimuli, not to mention any possible part played
by the inherent tendency of the organism to vary, you will, let
us suppose, produce a man. And your man, as an organism,
will obviously represent the sum of the effects of the responses
to the environment organically made by his ancestors. Organ-
ically your man will be the product of an innumerable variety
of conditions the changing relations collectively called "he-
redity" and "environment." So will be, and so indeed is, any
plant or any other form of animal life. Thus, all plant and
animal life is not produced according to definite laws, but in
response to a series of arbitrary or chance alterations in the
relations of the conditions affecting it. Nature is thus not an
intelligent teleologically directed process which acts accord-
ing to predetermined law, but is a composite of chance rela-
lations which may be arbitrarily observed as unit groups of
recurring averages of relations, the behavior of the independ-

"RACE" AND WAR 163

ent variables, or the quanta of which are both indeterminable
and unpredictable, whence the principle of indeterminacy or
more accurately limited measurability. Man, indeed, owes his
present supremacy to just such a series of undetermined chance
relations, which may more briefly be described as an accident,
the accident referred to having been initiated in the early
Miocene epoch approximately some fifty million years ago,
when owing, most probably, to the denudation of the forests,
due to causes which can at present only be conjectured, a
group of chimpanzee-gorilla like creatures resembling the
extinct ape known to palaeontologists as Sivapitliecus siva-
lensis were forced down from the trees and were constrained
to assume a life upon the ground. This revolutionary change
in their environment led ultimately to the development of all
those physical characteristics which we have learned to recog-
nize as distinctive of man. Those apes who lived in the unaf-
fected regions stayed up in the trees, descending to earth only
when, presumably, their weight became too great; they re-
main apes.

Was there any directive, purposeful, intelligent natural
force at work here? None at all. A devastating series of en-
vironmental changes accidentally precipitated may have been
responsible for the descent from the trees, or the cause may
simply have been the cumulative changes produced by muta-
tion and all mutation is random. The colossal number of
varied forms of life, extinct and living, which are to be found
upon this earth today have arisen because of the operation of
very similar causes. Every form of life with which we are ac-
quainted is due, or rather owes its peculiar form, to the in-
finite number of changes which have been and are in process
of taking place in the environment peculiar to each the in-
ternal as well as the external environment. These changes are
not regulated by law, but by chance. The processes of the uni-
verse of life are discontinuous and infinitely variable. The
universe consists of an infinitely changeable and changing
series of relations. Action and reaction, stimulus and re-
sponse, take place always relatively, never absolutely. Nature,

164 "RACE" AND WAR

in short, in the determined immutable sense of the tradition-
alists, does not exist save as a procrustean fiction.

The law and order that man sees in nature he introduces
there, a fact of which he seems to have grown quite uncon-
scious. Natural systems of classification work so well that, fol-
lowing an unconscious pragmatic principle, they are assumed
to be true, or at least, representative of the truth, the latter
being conventionally defined as correspondence with the real-
ity of whatsoever it may be; in this way the tacit assumption
is made that one has but to seek and one will find the law and
order that is undoubtedly in nature. This process is termed
"discovery."

Now, while systems of classification are of incalculable
value in aiding the processes of understanding and discovery,
such systems are nonetheless quite artificial and do not in any
way reflect a law and order which characterizes the operation
of the processes we commonly ascribe to nature itself. Nature
is a fiction which uses neither measuring rod nor timetable.
It is man alone who uses such instruments in order that he
may the more fittingly orient himself in relation to this self-
created fiction. The classificatory systems of man are fictional
devices and merely represent the attempt and it is a grand
attempt to unravel the tangled skein of some of the relations
of the various forms of life and substance to one another, but
no more. Of this man loses sight, and confuses himself with the
belief that the law and order which he has worked out into
an arbitrary scheme is the law and order according to which
nature "works." Homo additus Naturae, remarked Bacon long
ago. Nature, if it consists of anything, represents a discon-
tinuous series of processes, a complex of entangled gossamer
strands, which man attempts to gather together and spin into
a web which he naively imagines is the real thing, the "real
thing*' being merely as he sees it, and he sees it in an infinite
number of ways, according to the kingdom that is within him.
Nature comes in this way to mean anything; and what may
mean anything, in fact means nothing. "Nature'* is a term
without definite meaning. It is a personification of purely

"RACE" AND WAR 165

imagined purposes. Logically the conception of nature is with-
out the slightest value; psychologically, perhaps, the term
may not be without some significance in the sense of Nie-
tzsche's words in The Joyful Wisdom: "Laws and laws of na-
ture are the remains of mythological dreaming."

Julian Huxley has, I think, adequately disposed of the type
of purposive personification in which Sir Arthur Keith has
indulged. "The ordinary man," he writes, "or at least the
ordinary poet, philosopher, and theologian, is always asking
himself what is the purpose of human life, and is anxious to
discover some extraneous purpose to which he and humanity
may conform. Some find such a purpose exhibited directly in
revealed religion; others think that they can uncover it from
the facts of nature. One of the commonest methods of this
form of natural religion is to point to evolution as manifest-
ing such a purpose. The history of life, it is asserted, mani-
fests guidance on the part of some external power; and the
usual deduction is that we can safely trust that same power for
further guidance in the future.

"I believe this reasoning to be wholly false. The purpose
manifested in evolution, whether in adaptation, specializa-
tion, or biological progress, is only an apparent purpose. It is
just as much a product of blind forces as is the falling of a
stone to earth or the ebb and flow of the tides. It is we who
have read purpose into evolution, as earlier men projected
will and emotion into inorganic phenomena like storm or
earthquake. If we wish to work towards a purpose for the
future of man, we must formulate that purpose ourselves.
Purposes in life are made, not found/' r

With respect to the "war of Nature" which is alleged to be a
"universal law of Nature," that, it must be said, is pure fancy.
We are told that even trees and flowers "fight." Do they?
There is not the slightest evidence that they do. And if they
do, what connection has this "fighting" with the warfare prac-
ticed by men? Some flowers digest insects; some plants "stran-
gle" others. Does this constitute war between the flowers and

i Julian S. Huxley, Evolution; the Modern Synthesis, p. 576.

166 "RACE" AND WAR

the insects concerned? Do the plants that strangle others have
to plead guilty to murder? Are these "warlike" actions of
plants and flowers advance or rearguard actions? It would be
extremely helpful to know whether it is defensive or offensive
war that is natural. Sir Arthur Keith believes that both are.
The illegitimate use of such terms as "struggle," "fighting,"
"force," and so forth, when applied to plant and animal life,
and the deliberate confusion of these terms with "war," occur
too often and are too often allowed to pass unchallenged. Pro-
fessor Pollard has entertainingly remarked of this confusion:
"The sun and the moon, we suppose, declare war with great
regularity because they get into opposition every month. Par-
ties in the House of Commons are perpetually at war because
they are opposed. The police wage war because they are a
force; for naturally if we use force against a criminal, we must
needs make war upon other communities. War, indeed, will
last for ever, because men will never 'cease to struggle/ So the
League of Nations has obviously failed whenever a stern par-
ent is caught chastising a peccant child; and 'fighting' will go
on without end because drowning men will fight for life,
doctors will fight disease, and women will fight for places at
drapery sales. And this is war!" 8 The semantic fallacy could
not be pointed more neatly.

Man, like other creatures, kills a large number of animals
for the purposes of food and various other uses. Does the
process of killing and consuming these animals constitute
war? In any case, is the killing of these animals either necessary
or natural? It is neither innate in the psychophysical disposi-
tion of man nor necessary that he may live, to kill any animal
whatever, or plant, for that matter, at least not for men living
in the highly civilized centers of the Western World. Man's
taste in food is culturally determined, like his taste in ciga-
rettes or alcohol. In primitive conditions of life he is forced to
kill animals for food and apparel, just as it was considered

a Pollard, "The War of Nature and a Peace of Mind/' Vincula, Dec., 1925,
pp. 60-61.

"RACE" AND WAR 167

"natural" for some nations, not so long ago, to kill prisoners
of war in order that the food supply might not unnecessarily
be depleted. Animals in the wild state kill large numbers and
varieties of other animals, where they are available, for the
satisfaction of their hunger, for the very good reason that they
have no other means of remaining alive but man has. Man
has immeasurably improved upon the wild ways of life of the
uncultured beasts of the jungle, and there is not the slightest
reason why he should revert to them. In medieval England it
was considered natural and perfectly legal for all claims to real
property to be settled and tried by battle. Since those days
man has elaborated more peaceful means of settling such
claims, not by blood, but by reason, because of an understand-
ing and sympathy made possible by a more enlightened form
of culture. For culture, if it means anything, represents the
fact of man's ability to elaborate and improve upon the nor-
mal processes of the universe, commonly called Nature. It is
through the agency of culture that man is able to elaborate
and improve upon his original endowment. It is not so much
that culture is an extension of him as that he is an extension of
culture. Indeed today, by means purely cultural, man is in a
position to control and regulate, in almost every possible re-
spect, his own future evolution. He holds the power within
himself of total self-extermination or more complete develop-
ment, and it will be by the weakness or strength of his human-
ity alone that either the one or the other effect will eventually
be brought about. Fundamentally, man is quite an intelligent
animal, but he is a victim, alas, of the two-handed engine of
his culture which distorts his mind and renders him unintel-
ligent. Outworn traditional teachings have made of Western
man a shockingly unintelligent creature, who lives under the
continuous and unrelieved domination of a chaos of ideas
more degrading, more stupid, more idiotic, and more sadden-
ing than it may ever be possible to describe. This confused
morality has without question been substantially responsible
for his present deplorable state, for the reflexes and patterns

i68 "RACE" AND WAR

of thought of every child born into the Western World today
have been conditioned according to the prescriptions of these
teachings, so that culturally Western man has come to be a
function almost entirely of the reigning spirit of confusion
and prejudice. And since in his conduct he functions without
effort as a victim of confusion and prejudice, he arrives at the
belief that it is natural to act and to think thus. In this way
is produced the mentally and spiritually bludgeoned individ-
ual who gropes his way confusedly through life and whose
number is legion. The frustrations which he has suffered seek
an outlet in aggressiveness, and it is in his world alone that
today force and war still remain a legitimate and defensible
means of settling a difference.

With regard to Keith's "race-prejudice," that, of course, is
a purely acquired sentiment, a constellation of socially manu-
factured emotions, as Sir Arthur Keith would undoubtedly
have known had he made as deep a study of cultural as he has
of physical anthropology. Nature, according to him, secures
the separation of man into permanent groups by means of the
operation of "race" prejudices, which express themselves as
national rivalries and jealousies, in order to produce "new
and improved races of mankind." This, presumably, is a form
of natural selection operating from inherited psychological
bases, a form of selection peculiar to man alone, for no other
animal, as far as we know, exhibits the slightest symptom of
anything akin to what Sir Arthur Keith calls "race prejudice."
So-called "race" prejudices among lower animals, like their
so-called "natural" fears and terrors, are acquired, not inborn.
This is probably true of the psychological barriers which exist
between different groups of birds and in various other ani-
mals. Experiments on young animals first carried out by Ben-
jamin Kidd many years ago and by numerous investigators
since then conclusively prove that the so-called "instinctive"
fear and terror exhibited in the presence of their allegedly
natural enemies by the adult members of the species are emo-
tions which are generally completely absent in the young and

"RACE" AND WAR 169

that they are acquired only by learning from other members of
the species or by individual experience. 9 A lamb or any other
animal, for example, which has had no long association with
members of its own species from whom it could have acquired
the fear or past experience with lions will exhibit not the
slightest fear of a lion when confronted with one. On the other
hand, when chickens raised in complete isolation are first
brought into association with other chickens they exhibit both
fear and aggressive reactions. 10 A certain amount of social, of
cooperative, experience would seem to be necessary if the
fears nurtured by isolation or any other factors are to be over-
come.

No animal or human being is born with any prejudice or
fear whatever, either of snakes, mice, or the dark, to mention a
few of the most familiar common fears usually considered of
"instinctive" origin; all these fears, or prejudices, are acquired
by learning and may, and usually do, act very like condi-
tioned reflexes, simulating physical reflexes which are innate,
but which in these cases are conditioned to react culturally,
not biologically or instinctively.

Upon the theory that "race" prejudice is innate how are we
to account for the well-authenticated fact, familiar to most
people of experience, that children of one nation, brought
up in the milieu of a "foreign" nation feel no prejudices
whatever, in wartime or in peacetime, against the nation
of their adoption, but on the contrary are generally to be
found in the ranks of their adopted land fighting against the
motherland of their ancestors, whether it be with ideas or with
powder. No more impressive demonstration of this is to be
found anywhere than in the case of the thousands of Japanese
Americans who in the second World War are bravely fighting
on all fronts as American citizens and soldiers against the

e This is not to say that certain general fear and aggressive reactions may not
have an innate basis, they may and probably do have; but it is to deny that
such reactions are innately determined for any specific creature or group.

10 Bruckner, "Untersuchungen zur Tiersoziologie, insbesondere zur Auflos-
ung der Familie," Zeitschrift fur Psychologic, CXXVIII (1933), 1-110.

170 "RACE" AND WAR

axis forces. Japanese Americans have especially distinguished
themselves in action against Japanese forces, 11 and many
of them have received the highest decorations for bravery un-
der fire.

A notorious example of transmutation is the case of Hous-
ton Stewart Chamberlain, the egregious author of that stupen-
dous miracle of nonsense The Foundations of the Nineteenth
Century, in which the spectacle is witnessed of an apostate
Englishman glorifying the Teutonic spirit, the German brand
of it in particular, at the expense, among others, of his an-
cestral land and heritage. One may well wonder what hap-
pened to Chamberlain's "birthright*' of prejudice when as
an adult he became a champion of German prejudices. Pos-
sibly William James's law of transitoriness of instinct may be
invoked here. And what shall we say of the author of the
Religio Medici, who wrote, "I am of a constitution so general,
that it consorts and sympathised! with all things; I have no
antipathy, or rather idosyncrasy, in anything. Those national
repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice
the French, Italian, Spanish, or Dutch"? As we have seen in
an earlier chapter, there is every reason to believe that race
sentiment and antipathies are comparatively recent develop-
ments in the societies of Western man.

In America, where white and black populations frequently
live side by side, it is an indisputable fact that white children
do not learn to consider themselves superior to Negro chil-
dren until they are told that they are so, a fact which is beauti-
fully illustrated by the words of a white American farmer
from the South who, in answer to the query as to what he
thought of the Negro replied, "I ain't got anything against
niggers; I was fourteen years old before I know'd I was better
than a nigger." Numerous other examples could be cited of
the cultural acquisition of prejudices, but we have already
dealt with the mechanism of "race" prejudice upon an earlier

11 Full accounts of the activities of Japanese-American members of the
forces of the United States may be read in the Japanese-American newspaper
Pacific Citizen, published at Salt Lake City, Utah.

"RACE" AND WAR 171

\

page, where we have seen that all ideas of "race" prejudice
are inherited in just the same manner as are our clothes, not
innately, but culturally. The statement so frequently heard
that "war is a universal and everlasting law of Nature" is at
best a shallow judgment, for it seems never to occur to those
who make it that the conflicts which they are pleased to term
"war" and which are alleged to take place between animals in
the wild state are pertinent only in referring to conflicts be-
tween animals of widely separated species, genera, orders, and,
almost universally, classes. Thus, mammals prey upon rep-
tiles, reptiles upon birds, and birds upon insects. Under cer-
tain conditions lions will attack almost anything that moves;
so will, to a lesser extent, wolves and hyenas; domestic cats
will kill small rodents and birds; monkeys will kill and eat
birds and insects; but in all these examples, selected at ran-
dom, not a single animal will fight with a member of its own
species in the sense that it will fight with members of other
species, orders, or classes of animals.

In the wild state it is not usual for animals of one species to
prey upon or to fight with each other, but rather to attack only
animals of very different species. To this rule there are very
few exceptions. Of course, very hungry animals will devour,
upon occasion, members of their own species, but this is a
form of conduct which is normally resorted to only because of
extreme necessity. In serious conflicts between wild or domes-
ticated animals of the same species the fight is rarely between
more than two individuals, and usually the causes and the
motives which have provoked the fight are similar to those
which influence men, namely, the will to possess a sexually
desirable mate or an object of physical value such as food.
Gibbons feed contentedly in the same tree with monkeys such
as macaques and langurs, but will not tolerate the presence of
another gibbon group of the same species. Practically all verte-
brates defend their territorial boundaries against invasion by
members of other groups of their own species. But this sort of
defensive fighting is very different from war. War is an organ-
ized attack of one community upon another community, and

172 "RACE" AND WAR

as such is never fought by animals other than those of the
"human" variety. It is impossible to produce a single instance
from the animal kingdom, outside of man, to show that within
a definite species a form of behavior resembling warfare is
waged by one group of its members upon any other order or
class of animals as a means of improving the species or what
not.

If one thing is certain, it is that it is not natural for members
either of the same species or of any other to wage "war" upon
one another. 12 As Dr. L. P. Jacks wrote, while the first World
War was raging, "there is nothing in the life of the lowest
beasts which can be compared for utter senselessness with the
mutual rending to pieces of the nations." War, let it be said at
once, is the most unnatural, the most artificial, of all animal
activities, for it originates in artificial causes, is waged by
artificial entities called States, and is fought from artificial
motives, with artificial weapons, and for artificial ends. Like
our civilization, war is an artificial product of that civilization
itself, the civilization that has been achieved by the repeal and
the repudiation of those very processes of so-called Nature
which our von Bernhardis are pleased to regard as an ever-
lasting universal law. 18

We have already seen that there is good reason to believe
that aggressive "race" sentiment and prejudice is a compara-
tively recent acquisition of man. So, too, there is very good
reason to believe that warfare is but a recent development re-
sulting from the artificial and perverted activities of men
living in highly civilized groups. Among the extinct varieties

12 it is even likely that the ants, who are in any event too far removed from
man to have any relevance for his behavior, form no exception to this rule.
See Nfaier and Schneirla, Principles of Animal Psychology, pp. 164 ff., and
Schneirla, " 'Cruel* Ants and Occam's Razor/' Journal of Comparative Psy-
chology, XXXIV (1942), 79-83. "One species of animal may destroy another and
individuals may kill other individuals, but group struggles to the death be-
tween numbers of the same species, such as occur in human warfare, can
hardly be found among non-human animals/' Alice, The Social Life of Ani-
mals, pp. 241-42.

is For an interesting discussion of "animal warfare," in which the author
extends the meaning of "warfare" to embrace attacks upon animals of widely
separated species, see Quincy Wright, 4 Study of War, pp. 42-52, 479-518.

"RACE" AND WAR 173

of men of whom we have any knowledge no evidence of any-
thing resembling warfare has ever been found. Plenty of
weapons of a rather simple nature have been discovered in
association with the remains of ancient man, but they were
clearly for use against animals, not against himself. Adam
Smith long ago pointed out that a hunting population is al-
ways thinly spread over a large area and possesses but little
accumulated property. Primitive man was, and in many cases
still is, a hunter, and no doubt, as is the case among most
existing primitive peoples, his hunting grounds were marked
off by definite boundaries, boundaries separating different
communities; "these boundaries were sacred, and as no one
would think of violating them they could not form a cause of
war."

"Savages," writes Ellis, "are on the whole not warlike, al-
though they often try to make out that they are terribly blood-
thirsty fellows; it is only with difficulty that they work them-
selves up to fighting pitch and even then all sorts of religious
beliefs and magical practices restrain warfare and limit its
effects. Even among the fiercest peoples of East Africa the
bloodshed is usually small. Speke mentions a war that lasted
three years; the total losses were three men on each side. In all
parts of the world there are people who rarely or never fight;
and if, indeed . . . the old notion that primitive people are
in chronic warfare of the most ferocious character were really
correct, humanity could not have survived. Primitive man had
far more formidable enemies than his own species to fight
against, and it was in protection against these, and not against
his fellows, that the beginnings of co-operation and the foun-
dations of the State were laid." 14

War came into being only after men had begun to culti-
vate the land upon which it was necessary for them to settle
permanently. Such an agricultural stage of development, we
know, first appeared among men not more than twenty thou-

14 Ellis, The Philosophy of Conflict, pp. 51-52. Ellis was here summarizing
the work of Holsti, The Relation of War to the Origin of the State. For a con-
firmatory view see Quincy Wright's chapter "Primitive Warfare," in A Study
of War, pp. 53-100.

174 "RACE" AND WAR

sand years ago, in the Magdalenian Age. 15 The agricultural
life results in the accumulation of property, the accumulation
of property results in more or less organized industry, industry
in wealth, wealth in power, power in expansive ambitions,
and the desire to acquire additional property the source of
additional power necessary to gratify those ambitions, and
thus, by no very complicated process, in war. Such conditions,
which are peculiar to the industrial civilizations of today, are,
of course, highly artificial, as are the prejudices and the "race"
sentiment which they serve to generate.

In the modern world undoubtedly the most potent cause of
war is economic rivalry, a purely cultural phenomenon having
no biological basis whatever. The desire for foreign conces-
sions and markets, an increase in population, desire for
Lebensraum, such things will upon little provocation set
nations in opposition and at each other's throats. 16 It is from
such economic causes that patriotism, chauvinism, and the
widespread fear of aggression which more than anything else
serves to consolidate the group and is responsible for the gen-
eration of "race" sentiment and prejudice, is born. As Mali-
nowski has put it, "human beings fight not because they are
biologically impelled but because they are culturally induced,
by trophies as in head-hunting, by wealth as in looting, by
revenge as in punitive wars, by propaganda as it occurs under
modern conditions. 1 ' 17

If all this is true, then it is apparent that war arises not as the
result of natural or biological conditions but from purely arti-
ficial social conditions created by highly "civilized" modes of
living.

With respect to the "natural antagonisms" with which man
is alleged to be endowed, it may be said at once that these are
pure creations of Sir Arthur Keith's imagination, for eer-
ie Childe, Man Makes Himself.

i See Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War, for a most illuminating ex-
emplification of this view.

if Malinowski, "War Past, Present, and Future," in Clarkson and Cochran
(editors), War as a Social Institution, pp. 23-24.

"RACE" AND WAR 175

tainly there exists no evidence that man is born with any an-
tagonisms whatever. The evidence is, on the other hand, quite
contrary to such a suggestion. Sir Charles Sherrington has set
out some of this evidence in his masterly book Man on His
Nature, while Professor W. C. Allee has recently given reasons
together with some of the evidence, observational, inductive,
and experimental, which indicate that the spirit of altruism,
of cooperation, is very much more natural to man than is that
of egoism or antagonism. "After much consideration," writes
Professor Allee, "it is my mature conclusion, contrary to Her-
bert Spencer, that the cooperative forces are biologically the
more important and vital. The balance between the coopera-
tive, altruistic tendencies and those which are disoperative
and egoistic is relatively close. Under many conditions the
cooperative forces lose. In the long run, however, the group-
centered, more altruistic drives are slightly stronger.

"If cooperation had not been the stronger force, the more
complicated animals, whether arthropods or vertebrates,
could not have evolved from the simpler ones, and there would
have been no men to worry each other with their distressing
and biologically foolish wars. While I know of no laboratory
experiments that make a direct test of this problem, I have
come to this conclusion by studying the implications of many
experiments which bear on both sides of the problem and
from considering the trends of organic evolution in nature.
Despite many known appearances to the contrary, human al-
truistic drives are as firmly based on an animal ancestry as is
man himself. Our tendencies toward goodness, are as innate
as our tendencies toward intelligence; we could do well with
more of both." 18

Many years ago Prince Kropotkin arrived at similar con-
clusions, which he set out at length in a very remarkable
book. 19 More recently Professor William Patten has elabo-

is Allee, "Where Angels Fear to Tread: a Contribution from General
Sociology to Human Ethics," Science, XCVII (1943), 521. See also the same
author's The Social Life of Animal^

l? Jtropotkin, Mutiial Aid.

176 "RACE" AND WAR

rated upon the principle of cooperation in an important
work. 20 Indeed, many distinguished students of the evolution-
ary process have dealt with the evidence emphasizing the im-
portant role which the principle of cooperation has played in
evolution, but their work is only now being rescued from the
neglect into which it has fallen. 21

The tendentious habit of thinking of evolution in terms of
"the struggle for existence/' by means of which, it is believed,
the "fittest" are alone selected for survival, while the weakest
are ruthlessly condemned to extinction, is not only an incor-
rect view of the facts but also a habit of thought which has
done a considerable amount of harm. Only by omitting any
reference to such an important evolutionary force as the prin-
ciple of cooperation and by viewing evolution as a process of
continuous conflict between all living things can men be led
to conclude that survival or development depends on success-
ful aggression. Omitting crucial facts and basing their argu-
ments on false premises, the muscular Darwinists could only
arrive at false conclusions. As Alice says, "today, as in Dar-
win's time, the average biologist apparently still thinks of a
natural selection which acts primarily on egoistic principles,
and intelligent fellow thinkers in other disciplines, together
with the much-cited man-in-the-street, can not be blamed for
taking the same point of view." 22

Certainly aggressiveness exists in nature, 28 but there is also
a healthy non-ruthless competition and very strong drives
toward social and cooperative behavior. These forces do not
operate independently, but together, as a whole, and the evi-

20 Patten, The Grand Strategy of Evolution.

21 Delage and Goldsmith, The Theories of Evolution; Reinheimer, Evolu-
tion By Cooperation; Reinheimer, Symbiosis; Wheeler, Social Life among In-
sects and "Social Evolution," in (Cowdry, editor) Human Biology and Racial
Welfare; Macfarlane, The Causes and Course of Evolution; Sherrington, Man
on His Nature; Emerson, "Basic Comparisons of Human and Insect Societies,"
in Biological Symposia, VIII (1942), 163-67; Gerard, "Higher Levels of Integra-
tion," in Biological Symposia, VIII (1942), 67-87.

22 Alice, "Where Angels Fear to Tread: a contribution from General Sociology
to Human Ethics," Science, XCVII (1943), 520.

23 Collias, "Aggressive Behavior among Vertebrate Animals, Physiological
Zoology, XVII (1944), 83-123.

"RACE" AND WAR 177

dence strongly indicates that of all these drives the principle
of cooperation is dominant and biologically the most impor-
tant. The coexistence of so many different species of animals
throughout the world is sufficient testimony to the importance
of that principle. It is probable that man owes more to the de-
velopment of this principle than to any other in his own bio-
logical and social evolution. His future lies with its further
development, not with its abrogation. 24

Without the principle of cooperation, of sociability and
mutual aid, the progress of organic life, the improvement of
the organism, and the strengthening of the species becomes
utterly incomprehensible.

There remains to be examined the statement given expres-
sion by Sir Arthur Keith and implied in the writings of many
before him that war is nature's "pruning hook," nature's
method of keeping her orchard healthy. This, of course, is
supposed to mean that war acts as a process of natural selec-
tion an idea which on the face of it is preposterously absurd,
for, as everyone knows, the manner in which modern war
acts is to kill off the very best members of the group while
jealously preserving the worst, the mentally and bodily dis-
eased and the otherwise generally unfit. It must, however,
be freely acknowledged that on the whole up to the modern
era the nations victorious in war were generally superior to
the people whom they conquered superior in the strict
sense of the military superiority of the combatant individ-
uals. In former times men actually fought with one an-
other, the superior warrior generally killing the inferior
in hand-to-hand combat. But in modern warfare the com-
batants scarcely ever see each other, and when they do it is not
military skill or native superiority which decides who shall
die, but a shell fired from a battery some five to ten miles
away or a machine-gun hundreds of yards distant, or a bomb
dropped from an airplane a mile above them. In actual
battle the superior men are the first to go over the top; in

24 Leake, "Ethicogenesis," Scientific Monthly, LX (1945), 245-253.

178 "RACE" AND WAR

dangerous and generally useless raids they are the first to be
chosen and killed. Where, in all this slaughter, is there to
be detected any evidence of natural selection? Selection, cer-
tainly, in that the superior are selected for death and the in-
ferior are protected against it in this way does modern war-
fare act as an agency of natural selection for the worst.

Man has reached his present supremacy through the in-
hibitive and integrative powers of his mind, the ability to re-
ject and suppress what he considers to be undesirable, the
ability to control. Human society depends upon the mainte-
nance of that ability of the mind to control, not so much the
brute in man for there is really nothing that is brutal in
him that is not forced upon him but those elements which
under miseducation are capable of making a brute of him. All
that is fine, noble, beautiful, and desirable in our civilization
has been achieved through the resolute determination of indi-
vidual minds not so much to conquer and to vanquish what is
customarily called "Nature," red in tooth and claw, but to
enlist the aid of "Nature" in the service of man and to control
it effectively. All that is so ugly and inhuman and so destruc-
tive in our civilization is due to the activities of those who are
anxious to exploit their fellowmen to their own advantage
and use measures of control only toward that end. To them
war is a profitable activity, for it increases their power as well
as their fortunes. It is individuals of this order, in all coun-
tries and from the earliest historical times, who make wars, not
nature. "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in
ourselves."

Let those who are wise enough awaken to the fact that too
long have they been deceived by a chaos of ideas for which
there is not the slightest basis in fact, but which represents, as
Spinoza said, the errors of the ages grown hoary with the cen-
turies. Let men realize that the flowers that bloom in the
verbal spring of such thinkers as von Bernhardi, Sir Arthur
Keith, and Herr Hitler have nothing whatsoever to do with
either the logical case or the factual reality. Nay, in spite of
Jant and others there is no instinct toward peace in man just

"RACE" AND WAR 179

as there is none toward war. The early Egyptians, the Cretans,
and the people of Mohenjodaro, in India, did not wage war,
for the good reason that it was totally unnecessary for them
to do so, since socially and economically they were entirely
sufficient unto themselves. Aboriginal Australians, however,
have fought with one another, because for economic reasons
such as a dog or a wife it seemed necessary for them to do so.
Men, it seems, fight only when and if they want to; there is
nothing within their native structure, no primum mobile, no
innate prejudice, save for such prejudices as have been culti-
vated in them by education, which forces them to do so.

The tradition of thought that renders possible such glib
talk of war and its supposed natural causes as we have here
surveyed represents the bequest to us from the remote past of
obsolete modes of thought which are conspicuous for their
profound irrationality. So powerful is this traditional detritus
that it has not failed to influence many of the most respected
minds of our day, to the extent of making "mathemagicians"
of some of our mathematicians, casuists of some of our philoso-
phers, and an apologist for war of the gentlest and among the
most distinguished of our physical anthropologists. This tra-
dition constitutes a Gordian knot which is so tied that to es-
cape its bondage one must sever the knot completely since
it resists being untied. At present this tradition of thought
constitutes the sole constrictive force operating upon the mind
of man as well as the main impediment in the way of its ra-
tional functioning, coercing the good in him toward evil and,
in short, representing a tyranny of the strongest and subtlest
power. If man is to be saved from himself before it is too late,
this tyranny must be broken, and this can only be achieved
by the unequivocal action that must follow upon the reasoned
dissolution of the errors of belief and thought that form so
great a part of our traditional heritage today. 25

25 For an admirable discussion of "race" relations and war, see Andrews,
"Racial Influences," in The Causes of War (edited by Arthur Porritt), pp. 63-
113.

12

'RACE" AND "BLOOD*

IN HIS inspiring and provocative book Man, Real and Ideal,
Professor E. G. Conklin writes, "Ashley Montagu would
discard wholly the word 'race* in the case of man because
of social prejudices associated with that word and substitute
for it 'ethnic group' or 'caste/ I wholly sympathize with his
desire to get rid of race prejudice, but not by denying the
existence of races or by giving them another name, for 'What's
in a name?' " x These statements do not correctly represent
my viewpoint, but it is not with them that I am here con-
cerned, but with Professor Conklin's question, "What's in a
name?"

What, indeed? I say that names are words and that words
rule the lives of men; to that extent words are among the most
important things we have to deal with in the course of our
lives. I say that the meaning of most, if not all, words is to some
extent emotionally determined and that man is to a large ex-
tent, a creature of emotion. It is Freud who said: "Words and
magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and
even to-day words retain much of their magical power. By
words one of us can give to another the greatest happiness or
bring about utter despair; by words the teacher imparts his
knowledge to the student; by words the orator sweeps his audi-
ence with him and determines its judgments and decisions.
Words call forth emotions and are universally the means by
which we influence our fellow creatures." 2 And as Henry
James remarked, "all life comes back to the question of our
speech the medium through which we communicate."

Where words are concerned, there are two classes of men
those who control their words by thoughts, they are in the mi-
nority, and those whose words control their thoughts, they are

i Conklin, Man; Real and Ideal, p. 20.
* Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, p. 13.

"RACE" AND "BLOOD" 181

in the great majority. The latter are the "word-supporters,"
the "word sentimentalists," the "racists;" unconscious or de-
clared; with them, to whom a name, a word, a very little word,
often means the difference between life and death, we are here
concerned.

There are many words in the vocabulary of Western man
which are characterized by an exaggerated emotional content;
words distinguished by a high emotional and a low rational,
or reasonable, quality. "Race" is such a word; "blood" is an-
other. The word "race" has assumed a high emotional content
in relatively recent times; "blood," on the other hand, is a
word which, from the beginning of recorded history, and long
before that, has possessed a high emotional content.

That blood is the most immediately important constituent
of the human body must have been remarked by men at a very
early period in their cultural development. The weakening
effect or actual death produced by an appreciable loss of blood
can hardly have escaped their notice. Hence, the identification
of blood as a vital principle of life and its endowment with
special strength-giving qualities must have been almost inevi-
table steps in the process of endowing this red fluid with mean-
ing. Among all primitive peoples blood is regarded as a most
powerful element possessed of the most varied and potent
qualities. To enumerate these and the functions they are be-
lieved able to perform would alone fill a volume.

In the cultural dynamics of Western civilization the con-
cept of "blood" has played a significant and important role.
From the earliest times it has been regarded as that most quin-
tessential element of the body which carries, and through
which is transmitted, the hereditary qualities of the stock.
Thus, all persons of the same family stock were regarded as
of the same "blood." In a community which mostly consisted
of family lines whose members had, over many generations,
intermarried with one another, it is easy to understand how,
with such a concept of "blood," the community or nation
would come to regard itself as of one "blood," distinct, by
blood, from all other communities or nations. This, indeed,

i8s "RACE" AND "BLOOD"

is the popular conception of "blood" which prevails at the
present time. Thus, for example, if one turns to the Oxford
dictionary and looks under "blood," the following statement
is found: "Blood is popularly treated as the typical part of the
body which children inherit from their parents and ancestors;
hence that of parents and children, and of the members of a
family or race, is spoken of as identical, and as being distinct
from that of other families or races.'*

As Dobzhansky has put it: "Before the re-discovery of Men-
del's work the transmission of heredity was thought of in
terms of inheritance of 'blood.' Parental 'bloods' mix and give
rise to the 'blood' of the child which is a compromise between
those of the parents. In a sexually reproducing population the
available variety of 'bloods' mingle owing to intermarriage. If
such a population is left undisturbed, the continuous mixing
process will result in an uniform solution which will repre-
sent the 'blood' of a race or a variety. When a complete or near
complete uniformity is reached you will have a 'pure race*
a group of individuals with identical germ plasms. If two races
mingle, a mixed race arises; if race miscegenation ceases, a new
'pure race' will eventually result.

"It is most unfortunate," Dobzhansky adds, "that the
theory of 'blood' though invalidated decades ago, still colors
not merely the thinking of laymen but finds its way, explicitly
or implicitly, into text books." 3

It is this conception of "blood" as the carrier of the herita-
ble qualities of the family, "race," or nation which has led to
its application in such extended meanings as are implied in
terms such as "blue-blood," "blood royal," "pure-blood,"
"full-blood," "half-blood," "good blood," "blood tie," or
"blood relationship," and "consanguinity." Putative "racial"
and national differences are, of course, recognized in such
terms as "German blood," "English blood," "Jewish blood,"
and "Negro blood"; so that today the words "race" and
"blood" have come to be used as synonyms.

Dobzhansky, "Genetics and Human Affairs/' The Teaching Biologist, XII

"RACE" AND "BLOOD" 183

When the meaning of these terms is analyzed, the manner
in which the general conception of "blood" operates may be
more clearly perceived. Thus, the term "blue-blood," which
refers to a presumed special kind of blood supposed to flow in
the veins of ancient and aristocratic families, actually repre-
sents a translation from the Spanish sangre azul, the "blue
blood" attributed to some of the oldest and proudest families
of Castile, who claimed never to have been contaminated by
"foreign blood." 4 Many of these families were of fair com-
plexion, hence in members of these families the veins would,
in comparison with those of the members of the predominat-
ingly dark-complexioned population, appear strikingly blue.
Hence, the difference between an aristocrat and a commoner
could easily be recognized as a difference in "blood"; one was
a "blue-blood," and the other was not.

The expression "blood royal" refers to the generally ac-
cepted notion that only persons of royal ancestry have the
"blood of kings" flowing in their veins. No person, however
noble his ancestry may be, can be of the "blood royal" unless
he has the blood of kingly ancestors in his veins. Thus, kings
are held to belong to a special class of mankind principally in
virtue of the supposed unique characters of their blood. In
order to keep the "blood" of the royal house pure, marriages
are arranged exclusively between those who are of "the royal
blood." In England, for example, no member of the royal
family who stands in direct line of succession to the throne
may marry anyone but a member of another royal house. The
most recent example of the consequence of disobeying this
rule is, of course, the case of the present Duke of Windsor,
who was forced to abdicate his succession to the throne of Eng-
land because of his declared intention to marry a person who
was not of "royal blood."

In common parlance and in the loose usage of many who
should know better, terms like "full-blood" or "pure-blood,"

*The blood in the veins is, of course, dark red in color, while the veins
themselves are white. The blue appearance of the veins through the skin is due
to the refractive properties of the tissues through which they are seen.

184 "RACE" AND "BLOOD"

and "half-blood" very clearly illustrate the supposed heredi-
tary character of the blood and the manner in which, by sim-
ple arithmetical division, it may be diluted. Thus, "full-
blood" and "pure-blood" are expressions which are alleged
to define the supposed fact that a person is of unadulterated
blood, that is, he is a person whose ancestors have undergone
no admixture of "blood" with members of another "race."
Within the last century these terms have come to be applied
almost exclusively to persons who are not of the white race,
to persons, in short, who are supposed to belong to the alleg-
edly inferior rungs of the "racial" ladder. It is possible that
this restricted usage has been determined by the fact that these
expressions have generally done most service in the descrip-
tion of native peoples or of slaves, as in "full-blooded Negro,"
"pure-blood Indian," or merely "full-blood," or "pure-blood."
Such a lowly association would be sufficient to secure the non-
application of the term to any member of the self-styled su-
perior "races."

A "half-blood," in contradistinction to a "full-blood," or
"pure-blood," is half of one "race" and half of another for
example, the offspring of an Indian and a white. What is ac-
tually implied is that while a full-blood or pure-blood may
claim relationship through both parents, a half-blood may
claim relationship through one parent only. For example, a
mulatto, that is, the offspring of a white and a Negro, is for all
practical purposes classed with the group to which the Negro
parent belongs, and his white ancestry is, for the same pur-
poses, ignored. In practice, it often works out that the half-
blood is not fully accepted by either of the parental groups,
because of his "adulterated blood," and he becomes in the
true sense of the expression "half-caste," belonging to neither
caste; for in Western society the so-called different "races" are
in reality treated as if they were different castes.

A person is said to be of "good" or "gentle" blood if he is
of "noble" birth or of "good" family. Here the assumed bio-
logical determinance of social status by blood is clearly ex-
hibited, that is to say, a person's rank in society is assumed to

"RACE" AND "BLOOD" 185

be determined by his "blood/' when, in fact, it is in reality
the other way around, that is to say, "blood" is actually deter-
mined by rank. The ancestors of all noblemen were once com-
mon people, plebeians. It was not a sudden metamorphosis in
the composition of their blood which caused them to become
noble; it was rather an elevation in social status, which en-
dowed them with supposedly superior qualities, which are
not biological in any sense whatever and belong purely to the
ascriptive variety of things. That is to say, they have no real,
but a purely imagined, existence.

The statement that a person is of "bad blood, " in the sense
that he is of common or inferior character or status, is rarely
encountered, for the reason, presumably, that those who use
such terms have not considered the "blood" of such persons
worth mentioning at all. Thus, for example, while there is an
entry in the Oxford dictionary for "blood worth mention,'*
there is none for blood not worth mention. In the sense in
which "blood" is considered as the seat of emotion, "bad
blood" is taken to be the physiological equivalent of ill-feel-
ing. In this sense, of course, "bad blood" may be created be-
tween persons of "good blood."

The term "blood-relationship" and its anglicized Latin
equivalent "consanguinity," meaning the condition of being
of the same "blood," or relationship, by descent from a com-
mon ancestor, enshrines the belief that all biological relation-
ships are reflected in and are to a large extent determined by
the character of the blood. This venerable error, along with
others, requires correction.

This brief analysis of the variety of ways in which "blood"
is used and understood in the English language and in West-
ern civilization in general renders it sufficiently clear that
most people believe that blood is equivalent to heredity and
that blood, therefore, is that part of the organism which de-
termines the quality of the person. By extension, it is also gen-
erally believed that the social as well as the biological status
of the person is determined by the kind of blood he has in-
herited. These beliefs concerning blood are probably among

i86 "RACE" AND "BLOOD"

the oldest beliefs surviving from the earliest days of mankind.
Certainly they are found to be almost universally distributed
among the peoples of the earth in very much the same forms,
and their antiquity is sufficiently attested by the fact that in
the graves of prehistoric men red pigments are frequently
found in association with the remains. These pigments were,
probably, used to represent the blood as the symbol of life and
humanity, a belief enshrined in the expression "he is flesh and
blood/' to signify humanity as opposed to deity or disem-
bodied spirit. There in the grave was the flesh, and the pig-
ment was introduced to represent the blood.

As an example of a myth grown hoary with the ages for
which there is not the slightest justification in scientific fact,
the popular conception of blood is outstanding. Were it not
for the fact that it is a bad myth, harmful in its effects and
dangerous in its possible consequences, it might well be al-
lowed to persist; but since great harm has already been done
and will continue to be done unless this myth is exposed for
what it is one of the most grievous errors of thought ever
perpetrated by mankind it is today more than ever necessary
to set out the facts about blood as science has come to know
them.

In the first place, let it be stated at once that blood is in no
way connected with the transmission of hereditary characters.
The transmitters of hereditary characters are the genes which
lie in the chromosomes of the germ cells represented by the
spermatozoa of the father and the ova of the mother, and noth-
ing else. These genes, carried in the chromosomes of a single
spermatozoon and a single ovum, are the only parts of the or-
ganism which transmit and determine the hereditary char-
acters. Blood has nothing whatever to do with heredity, either
biologically, sociologically, or in any other manner whatso-
ever.

As Dobzhansky says: "Germ plasms are not miscible
'bloods/ They are sums of discrete genes which, if unlike but
present in the same individual, do not mix but segregate ac-
cording to the rules established by Mendel. In sexually repro-

"RACE" AND "BLOOD" 187

ducing organisms, an individual inherits only one-half, not
all of the genes each parent possesses; and it transmits to its
children one-half of its genes. Every sex cell produced by an
individual is likely to contain a somewhat different comple-
ment of genes from every other sex-cell of the same individual.
Brothers and sisters have different hereditary endowments.
The variety of genes present in populations of many sexually
reproducing species, including man, is so great, and the num-
ber of combinations which they are capable of producing is
so colossal, that it is unlikely that any two individuals (identi-
cal twins excepted) ever have exactly the same germ plasms." B
The belief that the blood of the pregnant mother is trans-
mitted to the child in the womb, and hence becomes a part of
the child, is ancient, but completely erroneous. Scientific
knowledge of the processes of pregnancy have long ago made
it perfectly clear that there is no actual passage of blood from
mother to child. The developing child manufactures its own
blood, and the character of its various blood cells, both mor-
phologically and physiologically, is demonstrably different
from that of either of its parents. The mother does not contrib-
ute blood to the fetus nor the fetus to the mother. 6 This fact
should forever dispose of the ancient notion, which is so char-
acteristically found among primitive peoples, that the blood of
the mother is continuous with that of the child. The same be-
lief is to be found in the works of Aristotle on generation. 7
Aristotle held that the monthly periods, which fail to appear
during pregnancy, contribute to the formation of the child's
body. Modern scientific investigation demonstrates that this
and similar notions are quite false and thus completely dis-

5 Dobzhansky, "Genetics and Human Affairs," The Teaching Biologist, XII
(1943), 102.

6 "The placenta does not normally permit transfer of the mother's red
blood cells into the embryonic blood vessels, nor of those of the embryo into
the mother, even though these red blood cells are only .007 millimeter (.0003
inch) in diameter. It will moreover not even pass substances which are com-
pletely soluble, in the usual sense, in the blood plasma if their molecules are
of very large size; to be specific, the proteins of large molecular structure do
not enter the embryo as such." Corner, Ourselves Unborn, p. 51.

7 Aristotle, De generatione animalium i. 20.

i88 "RACE" AND "BLOOD"

poses of the idea of a blood-tie between any two persons,
whether they be mother or child or even identical twins.
Hence, any claims to kinship based on the tie of blood can
have no scientific foundation of any kind. Nor can claims of
group consciousness based on blood be anything but fictitious,
since the character of the blood of all human beings is deter-
mined, not by their membership in any group or nation, but
by the fact that they are human beings.

The blood of all human beings is in every respect the same,
with only one exception, that is, in the agglutinating proper-
ties of the blood which yields the four blood groups. But these
agglutinating properties and the four blood groups are pres-
ent in all varieties of men, and in various groups of men they
differ only in their statistical distribution. This distribution
is not a matter of quality, but of quantity. There are no known
or demonstrable differences in the character of the blood of
different peoples. In that sense the Biblical obiter dictum
that the Lord "hath made of one blood all nations of men to
dwell on the face of the earth" 8 is literally true.

Scientists have for many years attempted to discover
whether or not any differences exist in the blood of different
peoples, but the results of such investigations have always
been the same no difference has been discovered. In short,
it cannot "be too emphatically or too often repeated that in
every respect the blood of all human beings is identical, no
matter to what class, group, nation, or ethnic group they be-
long. Obviously, then, since all people are of one blood, such
differences as may exist between them can have absolutely no
connection with blood.

Such facts, however, do not in the least deter Nazi propa-
gandists from continuing to use the blood myth to set people
against one another. The prevailing official Nazi view of the
matter was presented to the Congress of the Nazi party at Nu-
remberg exactly six years before the invasion of Poland by the
official Nazi distorter of the truth, who for some mysterious
reason is called a "philosopher" Alfred Rosenberg.

Acts 17: 26.

"RACE" AND "BLOOD" 189

"A nation," he said, "is constituted by the predominance
of a definite character formed by its blood, also by language,
geographical environment, and the sense of a united political
destiny. These last constituents are not, however, definitive;
the decisive element in a nation is its blood. In the first awak-
ening of a people, great poets and heroes disclose themselves
to us as the incorporation of the eternal values of a particular
blood soul. I believe that this recognition of the profound sig-
nificance of blood is now mysteriously encircling our planet,
irresistibly gripping one nation after another/ 1 9

The concept of "race" which equates the inheritance of the
individual or of the group with the transmission of hereditary
characters or qualities through the blood dates from a period
when the nature of heredity was not understood and the exist-
ence of such things as genes was unknown. During that period,
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the race concept was
developed. It has been seen that this concept is false and mis-
leading, producing absurdities of thought, and conduct which
is atrocious.

The extravagant and utterly preposterous claims which the
Nazis have made on the basis of the blood myth are only
equaled by the superstitions which prevail among others in
the same connection. These were recently given much pub-
licity when the Red Cross segregated the blood of Negroes for
the purposes of transfusion. In other words, the myth of
"blood" seems almost as strongly entrenched in this country
as it is among the Nazis. It will be generally agreed that this
is an undesirable and dangerous situation and that the sooner
the facts concerning blood are made known the better.

The astonishing thing about the objection to Negro blood
is not so much that it is based upon a misconception, but that
the same person who refuses to accept Negro blood may be
perfectly willing to have his children suckled by a Negro wet
nurse. The same person will be ready to submit to an injec-
tion of serum derived from a horse or a cow or some other
animal, and while he himself may have been suckled by a Ne-

o Vossische Zeitung, 3 September 1933.

igo "RACE" AND "BLOOD"

gro wet nurse and may even entertain the greatest affection for
Negroes, he will violently object to any "pollution" of his
blood by the injection of Negro blood into his own blood
stream.

Quite clearly this is a false belief, a superstition for which
there is no ground in fact, but plenty in traditional belief. In
actual fact the blood of the Negro is identical with that of all
other human beings, so that for purposes of transfusion, or
any other purposes, it is as good as any other blood. 10

The objection to Negro blood is, of course, based upon the
antique misconception that the blood is the carrier of heredi-
tary characters, 11 and since the Negro is regarded as possessing
"racially" inferior characters, it is feared that these may be
transmitted to the recipient of the transfusion. Both prejudices
are groundless.

But observe how real unreal names and words may become
if only they are believed to be real. If I say that certain persons
belong to certain "globglubs" and that their "zebzebs" differ
from my zebzebs because I belong to a different globglub, I
may be talking utter nonsense; but if I believe that what I am
saying is actually meaningful and true, it may be nonsense to
others, but it is very fact to me. When, however, most people
believe in the existence of globglubs and call them "races"
and in zebzebs, which they call "blood," these words become
the meaningful counters of my life, the means by which I
handle "reality." But what we take for reality is often only
appearance, hence, we must be on our guard against words
which pass for capsules of reality, but are, in fact, nothing but
imaginative inventions bags into which we have breathed
our own hot air.

10 For an excellent analysis and discussion of the character of the blood in
the varieties of mankind see Lewis, The Biology of the Negro, pp. 82 ft".

11 It was the ancient belief that the seed comes from all parts of the body
and is carried in or is merely a specialized portion of the blood. For a clear
expression of this view, which has persisted down to modern times, see Hip-
pocrates Airs Waters Places xiii. 14. Such views, it may here be mentioned
in passing, formed the basis for the erroneous belief in the inheritance of
acquired characters, for if the blood gathered the seed from every part of
the body, any modification of the body would be reflected in the seed, and
hence would be transmitted to the offspring.

"RACE" AND "BLOOD" 191

What modern science has revealed about blood, then, ren-
ders all such words as "blood royal," "half-blood," "full-
blood," "blood-relationship," and the others to which refer-
ence has been made utterly meaningless in point of fact and
dangerously meaningful in the superstitious social sense.

Is it too much to expect that this false belief, the myth of
blood, will soon make way for the scientifically established
universal truth that all human beings, no matter of what creed
or complexion they may be, are of one and the same blood?

13

MYTHS RELATING TO THE PHYSICAL
CHARACTERS OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO

AONG THE MANY MYTHS concerning "race," those which
relate to the physical characters of the American Negro
are of especial interest. These myths illustrate rather
clearly the manner in which any trait may be seized upon and
transmuted into an "inferior character" by the simple device
of merely asserting it to be so.

The chief visible characters which are popularly held to
distinguish the Negro from the white are the color of his skin
and the form of his hair. These characters represent the im-
mediately "visible" differences. Other characteristics in which
Negroes are popularly held to differ from whites are in form
of nose, length of arms and hands, "body odor/' size of geni-
talia, size of brain, vocal cords, and so forth.

Before we proceed to examine his physical characters it
should be stated that the American Negro must be regarded
as one of the newest varieties of mankind. He represents the
end-effect of a considerable amount of mixture between dif-
ferent African varieties, American Indians, and whites of
every description principally whites of British origin. Out
of this mixture has emerged the unique type or ethnic group
in the making represented by the American Negro. The type
is even yet not fully consolidated, but is still in process of for-
mation. All the evidence indicates that while at the present
time the American Negro occupies, so far as his physical char-
acters are concerned, a position intermediate between the
African Negro on the one hand and whites and a relatively
small proportion of American Indians on the other, he will, if
the social barriers against intermarriage and "miscegenation"
are maintained, tend to stabilize around a type which is rather
more Negroid than otherwise. Even so, his physical structure
will continue to be characterized by many elements bearing

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 193

the indubitable marks of his white, and to a much lesser extent,
American Indian ancestry. 1

The results of investigations thus far carried out make the
following summary of the physical characters of the typical
American Negro possible. 2 It is to be understood that the find-
ings on the characters here cited have been repeatedly sub-
stantiated and confirmed by different investigators working
independently of one another. The characters described here
are to be read as conditions in the American Negro as com-
pared with Old American whites, 3 or mixed Europeans.

ANTHROPOMETRIC CHARACTERS OF NEGROES

Head slightly longer and nar- Prognathism (projection of
rower upper jaw) greater

Head height less Lips thicker

Cranial capacity less External ear shorter

Hair line lower on forehead Torso shorter

Interpupillary distance Arm longer

greater Chest shallower

Nose height less Pelvis narrower and smaller

Bridge of nose lower Leg longer

Nose broader Weight greater

Stature shorter

EXTERNAL FEATURES

Skin contains greater amount of black pigment
Hair, wavy, curly, frizzly, or woolly

1 See Herskovits, The American Negro; Cobb, "The Physical Constitution o
the American Negro," /. Negro Education, III (1934), 340-88; Cobb, "Physi-
cal Anthropology of the American Negro," Amer. /. Phys. Anthrop., XXIX
(1942), 113-223.

2 This summary is based on the work of Davenport and Love, Army An-
thropology, 1921; Todd and Lindala, "Dimensions of the Body, Whites and
American Negroes of Both Sexes," Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop. , XII (1928), 35-
119; Davenport and Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica; Herskovits, The An-
thropometry of the American Negro; Cameron, and Smith, "The Physical
Form of Mississippi Negroes," Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., XVI (1931), 193-201;
Day, Negro-White Families in the United States f 1932.

s The comparisons are made with the Old American series of Hrdliclca be-
cause these represent the type of the ancestral white stock of the American
Negro. See Hrdlicka, The Old Americans.

194 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

Distribution of hair less profuse
Sweat glands in greater number 4

A large number of characters have been omitted from this
summary for several reasons; some because Negroes and
whites do not differ in that respect, others because informa-
tion is lacking, and still others because for them the available
evidence is so unsatisfactory that it requires separate discus-
sion. We may now briefly consider the significance of the sum-
marized differences.

SIGNIFICANCE OF ANTHROPOMETRIC DIFFERENCES

In general the head of the American Negro is about 2 mm.
longer and about i mm. narrower than the head of the white.
In accordance with this form the Negro head is somewhat
lower, about 5 mm. This difference in the height of the head
is probably significantly associated with the very slightly
smaller brain of the Negro. The mean cubic capacity of the
Negro brain as compared with that of the white, as deter-
mined by Wingate Todd, was 1350.25 c.c. for 87 Negro males,
and 1,391.08 for white males. 5 The difference, in the males,
is here a matter of 41 c.c. in favor of the whites. Cranial capac-
ity and brain weight are characters which are very variable,
and there are very few observations into which the personal
factor enters so much as in the determination of these charac-
ters. But when all is said and done, Todd's difference of 41 c.c.
is probably as reliable and as accurate an estimate on small
samples of American Negroes and whites of similar social
status as it is possible to obtain. Now, in discussing head size
and brain size it is necessary to bear in mind that the Ameri-
can Negro is some 2 mm. shorter in total stature than the

* Homma, "On Apocrine Sweat Glands in White and Negro Men and
Women," Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, XXXVIII (1926), 367-71; Glaser,
"Sweat Glands in the Negro and the European/' Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop.

xviii (1934), 371-76.

Todd, "Cranial Capacity and Linear Dimensions/* Amer. J, Phys. Anthrop.,

vi (1923). 97-194-

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 195

white; while this difference cannot account for the whole of
the difference in brain size of the Negro, it probably does ac-
count for part of that difference.

It is obvious that as far as the diameters of the head are con-
cerned the Negro head tends to be long as compared to the
tendency toward reduction in length and a compensatory in-
crease in breadth and height in the white. Reliable evidence
is lacking on the relative thickness of the bones of the Negro
skull, but if there is any real difference, it must be exceedingly
slight, and would make, except in very aged individuals, very
little difference in the cranial capacity. In short, the size of
the Negro head is very slightly smaller than that of the white,
and different in shape, being long rather than broad. A differ-
ence of some 40 c.c. in cranial capacity suggests a very slightly
smaller brain volume in the Negro as compared with the
white. Actually, a difference of 40 c.c. is so small, falling well
within the normal range of variation of white brains, that it
can hardly be regarded as significant from any but a purely
statistical point of view. But since a difference in brain size has
formed one of the chief subjects of general discussions con-
cerning differences between Negroes and whites, it is neces-
sary to discuss this matter somewhat more in detail here.

As illustrating the kind of pseudo-scientific and popular be-
liefs which are generally held in these connections a few exam-
ples may be quoted. The following quotation is taken from a
work typical of the anti-Negro literature, and is by R. W.
Shufeldt, M.D., "Major, Medical Department, United States
Army (Retired)."

'In the skull of the negro the cranial capacity and the brain
itself is much undersized. On the average, the former will hold
thirty-five fluid ounces, as against forty-five for the Caucasian
skull. In the negro the cranial bones are dense and unusually
thick, converting his head into a veritable battering-ram.
Moreover, the cranial sutures unite very early in life. This
checks the development of the brain long before that takes
place in other races, and this fact accounts to some extent for

1 9 6 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

the more or less sudden stunting of the Ethiopian intellect
shortly after arriving at puberty." 6

Another example, this time from the work of a clergyman
interested in race relations, may be given on the same theme:

"The older schools of anthropologists agreed among them-
selves in assigning to the Negro branch of humanity a smaller
and a less highly developed brain than is exhibited by other
races. By charts, and otherwise, some of them sought to show
the areas of the Negro brain not yet developed to the standard
of the Caucasian. The logical results of the findings of these
men, with their prodigious industry and patience, are dis-
tinctly discouraging to the Negro. Accepting their findings,
there is provided an unanswerable argument against the
degradation of the white group through the absorption of the
Negro group." 7

For each of the statements made by these two writers a cer-
tain amount of support could be found in the writings of the
"older anthropologists." There are also several contemporary
"anthropologists" who would lend many of these statements
their support. To what lengths certain writers can go in these
matters, may be illustrated by the case of Professor Lidio Cip-
riani, of the National Museum and the University of Flor-
ence, Italy. During the progress of the Italian campaign in
Ethiopia Professor Cipriani published a book for the purpose
of justifying that campaign, and here we have Professor Cip-
riani's own summary of Chapter V of this remarkable work:

"Researches conducted on the brain of the African and on
its physiological and psychological functions reveal the exist-
ence of a mental inferiority which it is impossible to modify
and which excludes the possibility of its development in our
own manner. The Africans are particularly unadapted to as-
similate European civilization. Since this depends upon the
characters of the race, which are transmissible, then, with

6 Shufeldt, The Negro a Menace to American Civilization, p. 35. This book,
which is dedicated to the great palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope, is, per-
haps, one of the most virulent attacks under a pseudo-scientific guise upon
the American Negro ever to have been published.

T Shannon, The Negro in Washington, p. 320.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 197

crossing, it is necessary to develop certain eugenical norms,
above all for Europeans living in contact with the Africans.
In this connection the important observations which have
been made on the Negroes imported into America since the
seventeenth century have the greatest value." 8

The subjective determination and evaluation of the evi-
dence is apparent here. One of the classical examples of un-
conscious bias in this field is represented by Professor R. Ben-
nett Bean's study of the Negro brain. In this study 9 Bean
described certain alleged racial differences in the Negro brain,
such as its relatively small size, the reduction in the volume of
the frontal and temporal lobes, and the anterior part of the
corpus callosum the great association tract connecting the
two hemispheres of the brain.

Professor F. P. Mall, in whose laboratory at Johns Hopkins
University this research was conducted, was so dissatisfied
with Bean's interpretation of the evidence that he was led to
investigate the problem for himself. It should be stated here
that Mall was the outstanding American anatomist of his time
and that he was responsible for training a large majority of
America's most notable anatomists. Utilizing the racial cri-
teria of Bean and others, Mall and his colleagues were quite
unable to distinguish Negro from white brains, and after
pointing out the technical, instrumental, and personal errors,
and contradictory results involved in Bean's work, he con-
cluded: "In this study of several anatomical characters said
to vary according to race and sex, the evidence advanced has
been tested and found wanting. It is found, however, that por-
tions of the brain vary greatly in different brains and that a
very large number of records must be observed before the
norm will be found. For the present the crudeness of our
method will not permit us to determine anatomical characters
due to race, sex or genius and which if they exist, are com-
pletely masked by the large number of marked individual

8 Cipriani, Un assurdo etnico: L'Impero Etiopico, p. 177.
Bean, "Some Racial Peculiarities of the Negro Brain," Amer. J. Anatomy,
V (1906), 953-4*5-

iq8 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

7

variations. The study has been still further complicated by
the personal equation of the investigator. Arguments for dif-
ference due to race, sex and genius will henceforward need to
be based upon new data, really scientifically treated and not
on the older statements." 10

Similar criticisms of Bean's work were made by Wilder, 11
but up to the present time a rigorously controlled scientific
study of the Negro brain, as compared with that of the white,
has not appeared.

Poynter and Keegan noted that the Negro brain generally
displays "a prominent parietal lobe in contrast to the 'ill
filled' frontal region." 12 But quite clearly this so-called char-
acteristic merely represents an accommodation of the shape
of the Negro head, which, it will be recalled, is longer, nar-
rower, and lower than the head of the white. Poynter and Kee-
gan wisely recognize that since their findings demonstrate that
the Negro brain displays characters which fall within the lim-
its of variation of the white brain "it is not possible to estab-
lish a single morphological feature which can be claimed as
absolutely characteristic." Similarly, Fischer concluded that
"the convolutions and the furrows or sulci between them vary
so much from individual to individual that no racial distinc-
tions can be ascertained." 18

Levin, of the Bechterew Institute for Brain Research at
Leningrad, has recently shown, in a discussion of the whole
problem, that the available evidence affords no ground what-
soever for any belief in racial or "inferiority signs" in human
brains, whether they be of great men or of "savages." 14

Actually, if the Negro brain is somewhat smaller than that
of the white, the difference will be found to be so small that

10 Mall, "On Several Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain, Said to
Vary According to Race and Sex," Amer. /. Anatomy, IX (1909), 1-32.

11 Wilder, The Brain of the American Negro.

12 Poynter and Keegan, "A Study of the American Negro," /. Comparative
Neurology, XXV (1915), 183-202.

is Fischer, "Variable Characters in Human Beings," in Baur, Fischer, and
Lenz, Human Heredity, pp. 114-66.

i* Levin, "Racial and 'Inferiority* Characters in the Human Brain," Amer. /.
Phys. Anthrop., XXII (1937), 345-80.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 199

it can hardly be considered in any way significant for the men-
tal functioning of the Negro as compared with that of the
white. Within the limits of normal variation, differences in
brain size have about as much relation to intelligence and cul-
tural achievement as differences in body size, and as far as the
available evidence goes, that is none. The Negro Kaffirs and
Amaxosa of Africa, the Japanese, the American Indians, the
Eskimos, and the Polynesians all have brains which are larger
than those of the average whites. On the same grounds as the
white proclaims himself superior to the Negro, he should pro-
claim these peoples superior to himself thus far, however,
there is no evidence that he is likely to do so. The fact is that
the external morphology of the human brain, or the charac-
ters of size and weight, have little or nothing to do with its
functional capacities; these, on the other hand, must be con-
sidered as due to a complex of characters, such as the geneti-
cally determined internal (microscopic) structure of the cells
and neurones and the organization to which these are sub-
jected by experience, the abundance of the blood vessels, the
character of their walls, and the efficiency of the drainage. 15

Upon these matters we have no evidence adequate enough
for a definitive judgment beyond the statement that at the pres-
ent time there exists no evidence in support of the popular
belief that significant differences exist between the brain of
the Negro and that of the white.

With respect to the commonly repeated statement that the
cranial sutures in the Negro unite earlier than in other races,
"and thus cause a stunting of the Ethiopian intellect shortly
after arriving at puberty," it can now quite definitely be
stated, as a result of the fundamental studies of Todd and
Lyon on suture closure in Negroes and whites, that no signifi-
cant differences in the character of suture closure exists be-
tween the two groups. The authors conclude their studies
with the statement "We repeat that there is one modal type of

is Donaldson, "The Significance of Brain Weight," Arch. Neurology and
Psychiatry, XIII (1925), 385-86; Bonin, "On the Size of Man's Brain as Indicated
by Skull Capacity," /. Comparative Neurology, LIX (1934), 1-28; Klineberg,
Race Differences, pp. 77-92.

200 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

human suture closure upon outer and inner faces of the cra-
nium, common to White and Negro stocks." 16

As far as the growth and development of the skull is con-
cerned, there are no significant differences between Negroes
and whites. There do, however, exist differences in the pat-
tern and rate of growth in certain bones of the skull, and these
differences are already apparent during fetal development;
as Schultz has said, "these differences are essentially the same
as those which distinguish adult Whites from adult Ne-
groes." 17

Thus, Limson l8 found that in Negro fetuses the occiput
was more prominent and convex and the external occipital
protuberance more strongly formed than in white fetuses.
Limson also found that the dental arch projects farther for-
ward and that the anterior nasal spine is smaller in Negro
than in white fetuses. These are precisely the regions of dif-
ferential growth which Todd and his coworkers 19 have shown
to distinguish the adult Negro cranium, namely, greater ex-
pansion of the occipital bone at the back of the head and
greater forward growth of the upper jaw and dental arch. This
difference in the detailed growth pattern of the jaw has been
shown to hold good in Negro fetuses in respect of the premax-
illary bone, which tends to lose its independence later than in
the white; This fact is significantly correlated, of course, with
the somewhat greater projection of the upper jaw in the Ne-
gro than in the white. 20 This projection of the upper jaw is
not a true prognathism similar to that which occurs in the
anthropoid apes, for in the latter the early arrest in the growth

ie Todd and Lyon, "Cranial Suture Closure; Its Progress and Age Relation-
ship. Part IV. Ectocranial Closure in Adult Males of Negro Stock," Amer. J.
Phys. Anthrop., VIII (1925), 149-68. Part l-III of these studies occur in pre-
ceding numbers of the same journal.

IT Schultz, "Fetal Growth in Man," Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., VI (1923), 389-
400.

is Limson, "Observations on the Bones of the Skull in White and Negro
Fetuses and Infants," Contributions to Embryology, No. 136, 1932, pp. 204-22.

19 Todd, "The Skeleton," in Growth and Development of the Child, Part II
(White House Conference on Child Health and Protection), pp. 107-9.

20 Montagu, "The Premaxilla in the Primates," Quarterly Review of Biology,
X (1935), 182-84.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 201

of the brain case and the continued growth of the jaws and
dental arches is a syndrome which does not occur in any form
of man. The projection of the upper jaw in the Negro is accen-
tuated as compared to the conditions in the white because in
the latter there is an earlier arrest of growth in the upper jaw
than in the Negro. This greater growth of the maxilla in the
Negro is also responsible for another apparent, though unreal,
difference in the appearance of the head. This is the appar-
ently greater projection of the white cranium beyond the face
this appearance does not reflect any real difference in the
character of the cranium, but rather constitutes the reflection
of the lesser projection of the jaws in the white in whom the
jaws have tended, as it were, to shrink under the top of the
head rather more than in the Negro. From every point of view
the reduction in the size of the upper jaw in whites must be
considered unfortunate, for the resulting restriction in space
is responsible for a very large number of disorders, such as fail-
ure of development of teeth, the noneruption, crowding, or
rotation of teeth, deflection of the nasal septum, cleft palate
and harelip, and so forth. 21 The retention of the ability for
continued growth by the Negro maxilla as compared with the
loss of this ability in whites would here, indubitably, confer
an advantage upon the Negro.

With respect to the shape of the nose in the Negro, this is
very variable, but it stabilizes around a rather shorter, flatter,
and broader nose than that of the average white. It has been
very cogently suggested that the broad nose and larger nasal
passages of the African Negro are adapted to meet the require-
ments of air breathed at relatively high temperatures, whereas
the relatively long narrow nose of the white is adapted to the
breathing of air at relatively low temperatures. A statistical
investigation of this problem supports this suggestion with a
high degree of probability. 22

21 For a discussion of these matters see Montagu, "The Premaxilla in Man,"
J. Amer. Dent. Assoc., XXIII (1936), 2043-57, and "The Significance of the
Variability of the Upper Lateral Incisor Teeth in Man," Human Biology,
XII (1940), 323-58.

22 Thomson and Buxton, "Man's Nasal Index in Relation to Certain Cli*
matic Conditions/' /. Royal Anthrop. Institute, LIII (1923), 92-122.

202 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

Statements to the effect that the Negro nose is more primi-
tive than that of the white are meaningless. For example, Dr.
Victor Heiser has recently stated that the fact that the Philip-
pine Negritoes "were true Negroes was shown by the one piece
cartilage in their spreading noses; all other races have a split
cartilage. Even the octoroons show this negroid test of Negro
blood." 28 This statement was repeated and elaborated in
November, 1936, in Collier's Weekly.

Dr. Montague Cobb has thoroughly disposed of this error
by showing that no split cartilage occurs in any monkey, ape,
or man and that there are no significant characters of the nasal
cartilages, except those of size, which distinguish the Ameri-
can Negro from the white nose. 24

Actually, the Negro nose merely exhibits a difference in
form, and there is every reason to believe that the original
form of the African Negro nose persisted in Africa as an adap-
tively valuable character and that in the American Negro the
form of the nose, while still very variable, presents a form in-
termediate between white, American Indian, and African
Negro. The greater the admixture of white ancestry, the more
Caucasian does the form of the nose appear. Even so, there is
a marked tendency toward persistence of the broad nose. This,
among other characters, has been termed an "entrenched Ne-
gro character"; 25 that is to say, a character which shows rela-
tively great stability under hybridization. Other such features
are lip thickness, mouth width, interpupillary distance, and
ear height. As for the apparently larger eye of the Negro, this
is an illusion resulting from the comparatively less angular
orbit of the Negro. On the other hand, Mrs. Day's very careful
observations 26 very clearly show that two of Todd's most
dominantly entrenched Negro characters, namely, lip thick-
ness and breadth of nose, very readily undergo change toward

28 Heiser, An American Doctor's Odyssey, p. 146.

2* Cobb, "Your Nose Won't Tell," Crisis, LXV (1938), 332-36.

25 Todd, "Entrenched Negro Physical Features," Human Biology, I (1930),

57-69-

26 Bay, A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States, pp.

96-99-

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 203

the type of the white lip and nose under hybridization. It
would seem, however, that an appreciable amount of admix-
ture must usually occur before these two characters actually
assume the "ideal" white form.

The slope of the forehead in Negroes is not significantly
different from that in whites, and we have already seen that
this apparent "difference" is an illusion due to the greater
"prognathism" of the Negro.

A still more significant contribution to the alleged low-
foreheadedness of the Negro is the fact that the level at which
the hair grows on his head is lower upon the forehead than it
is in the white. Under hybridization this low level of the hair
line appears to be one of the first characters to yield as a
glance through Mrs. Day's photographs of Negro-white indi-
viduals will at once show.

In African Negroes the chin is not as prominent as it is in
whites, but in American Negroes the chin prominence is in-
termediate between the conditions in Africans and those in
whites, as may be seen from Mrs. Day's figures, 27 which both
Hooton and the present writer believe to show an exaggerat-
edly high proportion of lack of chin protrusion, 38.9 percent
in females and 50.5 percent in males. It is clear, however, that
chin protrusion increases with increase in the proportion of
white ancestry.

In view of the fact that statements are frequently made
which refer to the alleged ape-like "hands" of the Negro and
his long arms or long legs, as those who make such statements
see fit, we may well briefly consider these matters here.

The Negro torso is about an inch and a quarter shorter
than that of the white, the Negro leg a little less than an
inch and a quarter shorter. 28 The Negro arm is about an
inch longer, the upper arm being relatively shorter and the
forearm relatively longer than in the white. As for breadth
and length of hands, Todd and Lindala found no significant

27 Ibid., p. 100.

28 Davenport and Love, Army Anthropology; Todd and Lindala, "Dimen-
sions of the Body, Whites and American Negroes of Both Sexes," Amer. J, Phys
Anthrop., XII (1928), 35-119.

204 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

differences in these dimensions, a fact which led these investi-
gators to remark, "it is rather astonishing to find that the 'long
narrow hand' of the Negro vanishes on the average." 29 It was
considered by these authors that this finding could not be im-
puted to the admixture oi white ancestry, since their series
gave many evidences of relative purity of strain. Herskovits
also failed to find any significant difference in the width of
the Negro hand. 30 While the Negro hand as a whole is not
longer than the hand of the whites, the fingers are, on the
whole, longer, for Herskovits found that the middle finger is
longer in Negroes than in whites. 81 This would then make
that portion of the hand in the Negro which extends from the
wrist to the base of the fingers shorter than in the white, but
this supposition requires confirmation. With respect to the
length of the thumb there exist some observations on the
skeletal thumb in 9 African Negroes and 15 whites which in-
dicate that the African Negro thumb is about 1.7 mm. shorter
in relation to the length of the middle finger than the relative
thumb length of the average Englishman. 82 These findings
corroborate in a rather striking manner the earlier findings
of Schultz, who found the length of the thumb in relation to
the middle finger in 18 adult Negroes to be 1.8 mm. less than
in 14 adult whites. 88 In relation to the length of the hand,
Schultz found that in both Negro fetuses and Negro adults
the thumb was relatively shorter than in whites. 84

Hence, as far as the upper extremity is concerned it would
appear that every part of it is perfectly proportionate to the
other, and that the greater length of the Negro arm is actually
due to a compensatory adjustment in relation to the shorter
torso. As for "ape-like* 1 characters of Negro hands or arms,

29 Ibid., p. 73.

80 Herskovits, The Anthropometry of the American Negro, pp. 67-68.

si Ibid., p. 68.

82 Montagu, "On the Primate Thumb," Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop. f XV (1931),
291-314.

83 Schultz, "The Skeleton of the Trunk and Limbs of Higher Primates," Hu-
man Biology, II (1930), 381-83.

8* Schultz, "Fetal Growth of Man and Other Primates," Quarterly Review
of Biology, I (1926), 493-95.

TttE AMERICAN NEGRO 265

they are entirely wanting, both in the proportions and in the
deeper structures.

The lower limb of the Negro is about 2 inches longer than
in the white, and unlike the case of the arm, there is no differ-
ence in the proportions of the length of the thigh or lower leg.
"The long shin of the Negro is an illusion of its circumfer-
ence, as his long foot is an illusion of its flatness." 8B The
length and breadth of the Negro foot show no significant dif-
ferences from those features of the foot of whites and are en-
tirely proportional to leg length. 86

Recent attempts to show that Negro athletes enjoy an un-
fair advantage owing to their alleged possession of a longer
heel bone and longer calf muscles, have been critically exam-
ined by Professor W. M. Cobb, who has made a careful study
of this matter and has shown that many of the outstanding
Negro athletes have legs and feet which are predominantly
white in character and that Negroid physical characters are
not in any way significantly associated with Negro athletic
ability. 87 In this connection it may be noted that Malafa, in
an investigation of the bodily characters of sprinters and non-
athletes, carried out on 100 white students from the grammar
schools of Brno, Czecho-Slovakia, found that long legs were
one of the principal characters which distinguished the ath-
letes from the nonathletes. 38 This character constitutes, of
course, a selective factor and is not correlated with race or
racial characters. One more fact concerning the Negro foot.
The alleged longer heel bone is nonexistent, but both in fe-
tuses and adults is "caused entirely by a thick layer of subcu-
taneous fat." 89

so Todd, "Entrenched Negro Physical Features," Human Biology, I (1929),

se Todd and Lindala, "Dimensions of the Body," American Journal of Phys-
ical Anthropology, XII (1928), "4-75.

ST Cobb, "Race and Runners," /. of Health and Physical Education, VII
(1936). 1-8.

as Malafa, On the Bodily Differences between Sprinters and Non-Sportsmen,
pp. 1-11.

89Schultz, 'Fetal Growth of Man and Other Primates," Quarterly Review
of Biology, I (1926), 499.

206 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

It is frequently stated that the Negro pelvis differs from that
of the white in being longer and narrower. This statement is
not quite true. The Negro pelvis is smaller in all its dimen-
sions. Todd and Lindala write "The male Negro pelvis is
small in all its dimensions compared with the male White and
its true pelvic component is long compared with the height of
the iliac crest over perineum or over tuber ischii. Superposed
on a common bodily size the female White pelvis is relatively
some 10 mm. longer and broader than the male though its
absolute dimensions are less. The female Negro pelvis is
relatively only 6 mm. longer than the male but 2 1 mm.
broader." 40

It is greatly to be doubted whether there is any truth in the
common belief that because the Negro female has a narrower
pelvis than the white female she is more likely to experience
a less satisfactory termination to a pregnancy produced by a
white male than to one by a Negro male, the suggestion here
being that the rounder headed white is likely to produce a
fetus which will have a larger and a rounder head than can be
adequately delivered through a small narrow pelvis "in-
tended" for the delivery of Negro-fathered children.

Caldwell and Moloy have, from the obstetrical point of
view, investigated the anthropometric characters of the pelvis
of Negro and white females. 41 These investigators find that
female pelves may be classified into three types: (a) the gyne-
coid, or average female type, which occurs in 42 percent of
Negro females and in the same percentage of white females;
(b) the android type, more closely approximating the male
form than the female pelvis, which occurs in 15.7 percent of
Negro females and 32.5 percent of white females; and (c) the
anthropoid type with a long antero-posterior diameter and a
relatively narrow transverse diameter, occurring in 40.5 per-
cent of Negroes and in slightly less than half that percentage
of whites.

40 "Dimensions of the Body," American Journal of Physical Anthropology f
XII (1928), 97-98.

41 Caldwell and Moloy, "Anatomical Variations in the Female Pelvis and
Their Effects in Labor, with a Suggested Classification," Amer. /. Obstetrics
and Gynecology, XXVI (1933), 479-514.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 207

Obstetrically, the most dangerous form of the pelvis is the
android type, which occurs among whites with double the
frequency that it occurs among Negroes. The other two types
of pelvis present no especial obstetrical difficulties. It there-
fore seems improbable that the form of the Negro pelvis plays
any more significant role in difficult labor and delivery than
in the case of white females.

Davenport and Steggerda "entertained the hypothesis that,
in the case of the Black woman who carried a mulatto child
in utero, her narrow pelvic outlet and the child's large head
might offer an important disharmony." 42 In order to test this
hypothesis they proceeded to examine the heads of newborn
colored and white children. They found that the heads of
newborn colored infants were slightly smaller at birth than
those of white newborn infants, and it is quite evident from
their findings that no disharmonies between pelvic outlet and
shape of the head occurred in the Jamaica series examined by
these authors. Data on the pelves were not available to Daven-
port and Steggerda, but the data which have since appeared
render the suggestion of a significant disharmony of the kind
hypothecated highly improbable.

Skin color is a very complex character and depends upon a
multiplicity of factors for its expression. As is well known,
every gradation from black to white occurs among American
Negroes. The greater the admixture of white ancestry, the
more white, as a rule, does the skin appear. Barnes has shown
"that the percentage of Negro pigmentation of the American
Negro increases quite rapidly until puberty, with a maximum
at the age of 15; decreases rapidly until about the age of 35;
and then decreases very slowly the remainder of life." 48 This
finding is in essential agreement with the independent find-
ings of Davenport, and of Todd and van Gorder. 44

The inheritance of skin color is a cumulative process in-

42 Davenport and Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica, pp. 423-24.

48 Barnes, "The Inheritance of Pigmentation in the Skin of the American
Negro," Human Biology, I (1929), 321-28.

4 * Davenport, Heredity of Skin Color in Negro White Crosses; Todd and
van Gorder, "The Quantitative Determination of Black Pigmentation in the
Skin of the American Negro," Amer. J. of Phys. Anthrop., IV (1921), 239-60.

ao8 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

volving the operation of multiple factors, the individual hav-
ing the largest number of factors usually showing the charac-
ter developed to the highest degree. In Negro-white crosses
the genes for black pigment are not completely dominant over
those for lighter color; the first generation is mulatto or in-
termediate in shade. The offspring of mulattoes, however,
exhibit great variability of skin color, grading from black to
white; and it is apparent that in the second generation varia-
bility is higher than in the first. This is an effect of multiple-
factor inheritance, for owing to the large number of factors
now present, they are segregated in combinations which are
more distributively variable than those in the original ances-
tors. This form of blending inheritance is essentially Men-
delian. The evidence thus far suggests that there are at least
two pairs of genes conditioning skin color, yielding 9 geno-
types and 5 phenotypes assuming that the gene pairs have
approximately the same effect. In reality a far wider range of
phenotypes is observed, which suggests the existence of other
modifying genes affecting skin color. Further investigations
of a most refined and laborious nature remain to be carried
out before the mechanism of the inheritance of skin color is
fully understood.

Black children cannot be born to parents one of whom is
"pure" white. When a colored infant is born to white parents
it is proof that both the genitors carry Negro genes. Similarly,
a Negress with some white genes cannot bear a white child to
a pure Negro.

Black is the dominant hair color among Negroes, although
red, dark brown, light brown, and gray-brown hair occurs ir-
regularly; the lighter hair colors are more common among
those with half or more white ancestry. The black color of the
hair is one of the most dominantly entrenched Negro features.
On the other hand, hair form is, interestingly enough, one of
the most easily modifiable of characters. While among Ameri-
can Negroes every form of hair from woolly to straight is to
be found, it is clear that under hybridization hair form yields
most readily to the influence of new genes. This fact was strik-

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 209

ingly brought out in the classic study of Fischer 45 on the
hybrids of Hottentot-Dutch ancestry in South Africa one
group with dominantly woolly hair, the other with domi-
nantly straight hair. Fischer found that among the Rehobo-
ther Bastaards woolly hair occurred in 29 percent, frizzly or
wavy hair in 49 percent, and straight in 22 percent.

Davenport and Steggerda found that among Jamaicans
woolly hair occurred in 100 percent of blacks, in 86.7 percent
of browns, and in i percent of whites. Curly hair occurred in
none of the blacks, in 11.4 percent of browns, and in 30 per-
cent of whites. Wavy hair did not occur in blacks, but was
found in 2 percent of browns and in 30 percent of whites;
39.2 percent of the whites had straight hair.

In Mrs. Day's series of Negro-white families, it is very clear
that hair form varies with degree of admixture. Hooton, sum-
marizing Mrs. Day's findings, writes: "As far as our data carry
us we may conclude that % N males, % N females, and even
% N females may exhibit the entire range of hair curvatures
generally recognized, but that, if Mrs. Day's information is
valid, distinctively Negroid forms of hair, such as frizzly and
woolly, do not appear unless there is at least % of Negro blood
in the individual." 46

The inheritance of hair form in Negro-white crosses has
been studied by Davenport, 47 who found that straight hair is
a recessive condition. 48 Wavy or curly hair is a heterogeneous
condition, so that wavy plus wavy yields offspring which is
straight, wavy, and curly in the proportion 1:2:1. Curly plus
curly yields mostly curly; yet 14 percent of the offspring show
straight hair, so that it is apparent that some curly-haired
parents carry the gene for straight hair as a recessive.

Straight plus wavy and straight plus curly produce a good

45 Fischer, Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim
Menschen.

40 E. A. Hooton in Day, A Study of Some Negro- White Families in the United
States, p. 85,

47 Davenport, "Heredity of Hair Form in Man," Amer. Naturalist, XLII
(1908), 341.

48 Six types of hair form are distinguished here: straight, low waves, deep
waves, curly, frizzly, and woolly.

210 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

many curly-haired offspring. Post, analyzing Mrs. Day's data,
writes:

"Of the total number of 428 offspring, seventy-five have
curlier hair than the more curly parent, while only forty-three
have straighter hair than the straighter parent. This is all
negative evidence for a general dominance of the curlier con-
dition. . . .

"The six forms merge into each other. . . . There is no
evidence for the emergence of a New American Negro type,
in regard to hair form, such as Herskovits has lately described
for skeletal proportions." 49

It may, of course, be argued that the intermediate types of
hair form, as well as hair color, exhibited by American Negroes,
do constitute at least an approach to a new type, for the genetic
behavior of hair form is, in the character of its blending, not
unlike that of skin color and quite clearly shows many grada-
tions of form, intermediate between the hair forms exhibited
by African Negro and white ancestors. Thus, it would seem
that Herskovits's general finding concerning the emergence of
a new American Negro type holds good also for the character
of the hair form.

It is a common belief that the Negro is more glabrous (i.e.,
destitute of hair smoother) than whites. This belief is well-
founded for although it is still uncertain whether the Negro
possesses fewer hair follicles, it is quite clear that the develop-
ment of his body hair, both in thickness and in distribution, is
considerably less than in the white. Danforth's investigations
lead him to believe that in the Negro there has occurred a
reduction in the number of hair follicles and that there is
also a deficiency in the growth of individual hairs. 50 This
would appear to be the most plausible explanation of the
relative glabrousness of the American Negro, In an investi-
gation of the facial hair of Negroes and whites Trotter found
that there was no difference in the actual number of hairs, but

. H. Post in Day, A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United
States, p. 13.

BO Danforth, "Distribution of Hair on the Digits in Man," Amer. J. Phys.
Anthrop., 3V (1921), 189-204.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 211

that the average thickness of the facial hairs of the Negroes
was less than that of the whites; also, the hairs of Negro
women were somewhat shorter than those of white women. 51

In the Negro, as compared with the white, the general
tendency toward reduction in the amount of hair and the
character of its distribution has proceeded farther, as is evi-
denced by the reduction in the number of hair follicles on the
fingers, toes, 52 arms, and hands of Negroes. 58

In the American Negro, as is to be expected, every form of
hair distribution and development may be observed; the
greater the amount of white admixture, the greater the dis-
tribution and thickness of hair. These facts are well brought
out in Mrs. Day's observations on Negro-white families. From
these observations it would appear that facial hair reaches a
medium degree of thickness in individuals with % and less of
white ancestry. 54 It is highly probable that the genetic mech-
anisms here operative are much the same for hair distribution
and thickness as for skin color and hair form, with the
presence of multiple factors and the consequent segregation
of intermediate forms.

On the whole, one may say that the American Negro shows
a distribution of body hair and an intensity of hair growth
intermediate between the condition in the African Negro
and the American white.

One of the most popularly entrenched beliefs concerning
the Negro is that he possesses a unique and particularly ob-
jectionable body odor. During Dollard's investigations in
" South erntown" he encountered this belief, and his references
to it are worth reproducing here.

"Among beliefs which profess to show that Negro and white
people cannot intimately participate in the same civilization
is the perennial one that Negroes have a smell extremely dis-
ci Trotter, "A Study of Facial Hair in White and Negro Races," Washington
University Studies (Scientific Studies), IX (1922), 273-89.

62Danforth, "Distribution of Hair on the Digits in Man/' Amer. /. Phys.
Anthrop., IV (1921), 189-204.

53 Davenport and Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica, pp. 264-67.

5* Day, A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States, p. 86.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO

agreeable to white people. This belief is very widely held both
in the South and in the North. A local white informant said
that Negroes smell, even the cleanest of them. It might not
be worse than other human smells, but it was certainly differ-
ent. It was asserted to be as true of middle-class Negroes as of
others, at least upon occasion. Another informant swore that
Negroes have such a strong odor that sometimes white people
can hardly stand it. He described it as a 'rusty' smell. This odor
was said to be present even though they bathe, but to be
somewhat worse in summer. Another white informant de-
scribed the smell as 'acrid/ " Dollard states that he can de-
tect no difference between the odor of Negroes and that of
whites. 55

Shufeldt remarks that the body odor of the Negro is "some-
times so strong that I have known ladies of our own race
brought almost to the stage of emesis when compelled to in-
hale it for any length of time." efl To this it may, of course, be
replied, that many whites have been almost equally nauseated
by the odor of their fellow whites. Members of other ethnic
groups find the body odor of whites most objectionable. Thus,
the great Japanese anatomist Buntaro Adachi wrote that when
he first settled in Europe he found the body odor of Europeans
very objectionable strong, rancid, sometimes sweetish, some-
times bitter. As time drew on he became accustomed to it,
and still later found it sexually stimulating. 57 Similar expe-
riences will be found recounted elsewhere. 58 Body odor de-
pends upon a very large number of factors. Human sweat is
of complex structure and is a compound of the secretion of the
sebaceous glands and the sweat glands proper. Among the
known constituents of sweat are water, sodium chloride,
phosphates of the alkaline earth, urea, creatinine, aromatic
oxides, ethereal sulphates of phenol and skatoxyl, neutral fat,
fatty acids, cholesterol, albumin, and iron. Depending upon
the amount of these substances present at any one time, the

56 Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town, pp. 378-79.

* 6 Shufeldt, The Negro a Menace to American Civilization, p. 33.

* Adachi, "Der Geruch der Europaer," Globus, LXXXIII (1903), 14-15.

**See Klineberg, Race Differences, pp. 128-31.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 213

odor of the sweat will vary in the same individual from time
to time and under different environmental and dietary con-
ditions. Upon this subject there have been no really adequate
studies. All that we at present know is that body odor varies
from individual to individual within the same ethnic group
and that members of different ethnic groups, and even classes,
find the odor of members of other ethnic groups and classes
distinctly different and frequently objectionable. Klineberg
refers to "an experimental attempt to throw a little further
light on this question ... in an unpublished study by
Lawrence, who collected in test tubes a little of the perspira-
tion of White and Colored students who had just been ex-
ercising violently in the gymnasium. These test tubes were
then given to a number of White subjects with instructions
to rank them in order of pleasantness. The results showed no
consistent preference for the White samples; the test tube
considered the most pleasant and the one considered the
most unpleasant were both taken from Whites." 59 Klineberg
concludes: "There may be racial differences in body odors,
but it is important first to rule out the factors referred to
above, particularly the factor of diet, before a final conclusion
is reached. It is obvious that cleanliness is also a factor of im-
portance. In any case, the phenomenon of adaptation enters
to remove any special unpleasantness arising from the presence
of a strange group." 60

Since evidence upon the reactions of unprejudiced whites
are not as abundant as they might be; the present writer may
record the fact that in his own experience of African and
American Negroes he has never observed any particular or
general difference in body odor between Negroes and whites.
Furthermore, in his own household there have at various
times been employed some twelve Negro maids; all of them
had plenty of occasion to perspire freely, and all of them
served at table. In only one case out of twelve was any odor
of perspiration ever perceived by any member of our house-
hold. In this case the individual concerned was excessively

**lbid., p. 131.

214 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

fat. After the matter of her body odor was discreetly broached,
it was never again perceived.

Comparative studies of the physiology and chemistry of
Negroes and whites do not exist, but there do exist several
studies of the sweat glands in Negroes and whites from the
anatomical standpoint. To these we may now refer.

Clark and Lhamon, in a study of the sweat glands of the
hands and feet of Negroes, found that these were more abun-
dantly supplied with exocrine glands than were those of
whites. 61

Glaser, in an investigation of the sweat glands in one Bantu
Negro and in one European, found that "the regional dis-
tribution of the sweat glands in the Negro agrees closely with
that usually given for the European. ... In the great ma-
jority of regions compared, however, the Bantu has more
sweat glands than the European, and this is probably of
considerable value to him in resisting extremes of heat." 62

Homma, in a study of the apocrine glands of 10 Negroes and
12 whites, found that such glands occurred three times more
abundantly in the Negroes than in the whites and that while
such glands never occurred in the breasts of whites, they were
sometimes to be found in the breasts of the Negroes. 63

Thus, it is evident that if Negroes possess a greater number
of sweat glands than whites, heat regulation under high
temperatures would be more efficiently performed in them
than in whites, and it is also possible that if there is any dif-
ference in the odor of their sweat, it is probably not a differ-
ence in kind, but in degree or intensity, due to the cumulative
action of the number of glands involved.

As in the majority of characters in American Negroes, their
sweat glands are probably intermediate in number between
those of African Negroes and those in whites.

i Clark and Lhamon, "Observations on the Sweat Glands of Tropical and
Northern Races," Anatomical Record, XII (1917), 139-47-

2 Glaser, "Sweat Glands in the Negro and the European," Amer. J. Phys.
Anthrop., XVIII (1934), 371-76.

es Homma, "On Apocrine Sweat Glands in White and Negro Men and
Women," Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, XXXVIII (1926), 367-71.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 215

It is a common belief that the penis of the Negro is appre-
ciably larger than that of the white. The view is an old one.
Blumenbach (1752-1840), the founder of the science of
physical anthropology, referred to this matter as long ago as
1775. He states: "This assertion is so far borne out by the
remarkable genitory apparatus of an Aethiopian which I
have in my anatomical collection. Whether this prerogative
be constant and peculiar to the nation I do not know." 64

Upon this subject there exists no scientific evidence what-
soever. It is important to note here, however, that no traveler
in the last few hundred years or any anthropologist who has
worked in Africa has ever remarked upon any difference in the
size of the genitalia in Negroes as compared with whites. In
any event, the statements of untrained observers would not
be of much value. In recent years, however, one brilliant young
traveler and anthropologist, who has made observations in
West Africa, has stated that the Negro genitals are not dis-
proportionately larger than those of the white. 65

Bollard commenting upon his inquiries into the sexual
mores of "Southerntown" writes: "There is a widespread belief
that the genitalia of Negro males are larger than those of
whites; this was repeatedly stated by white informants. One
planter, for example, said he had had visual opportunity to con-
firm the fact; he had gone to one of his cabins, and on entering
without warning, found a Negro man preparing for inter-
course. Informant expressed surprise at the size of the penis
and gave an indication by his arm and clenched fist of its great
length and diameter. It was further said that this impression
was confirmed at the time of the draft examination of Negroes
at the Southerntown Courthouse in 1917. Two physicians
from other states have verified this report on the basis of draft-
board experience. A Negro professional, on the other hand,
did not believe that Negroes have larger genitalia than whites.

* Blumenbach, De generis humani varietate nativa, Gottingen, 1775. Trans-
lated by T. Bendyshe, "On the Natural Variety of Mankind" in The Anthro-
pological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, p. 68.

as Geoffrey Gorer, quoted by Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town,
pp. 161.

2i6 THE AMERICAN NEGRO

He had worked in military camps where he had a chance to
see recruits of both races naked, and said there is the usual
variation within the races, but no uniform difference as be-
tween races." 66

Commenting upon these statements Bollard writes: "One
thing seems certain that the actual differences between
Negro and white genitalia cannot be as great as they seem to
be to the whites; it is a question of the psychological size being
greater than any actual differences could be ... the notion
is heavily functional in reference to the supposed dangers of
sexual contact of Negroes with white women." 87

It is probable that Bollard has here given the correct ex-
planation of the facts, namely, that there is no actual difference
in size, but that like body odor, the alleged larger size of the
Negro genitalia is a function of the white's belief in the un-
desirability of contact with the Negro.

As an anatomist with many years of experience in Ameri-
can anatomical laboratories, the present writer has never had
occasion to remark any appreciable difference in the size of
the Negro genitalia as compared with those of whites. Medical
students are anxious to confirm their beliefs in this connection,
but except for an occasional case which is soon matched with
a similar condition in the white in the same laboratory, the
evidence is usually disappointing to the student. From my
own experience I would be inclined to say that the Negro
genitalia are relatively no larger than those of the white. Re-
calling, however, the greater leg length of the Negro, it is pos-
sible that the Negro genitalia may be proportionately larger
than those of the white, but evidence for this is lacking. If
there is any difference in size, then it is probably so small that
the popular belief may be dismissed as but another one of the
legends which have been built up about the anatomy of the
American Negro.

wDollard, he. cit. f pp. 160-61. w Ibid.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO 217

CONCLUSION

We may conclude this survey, then, with the statement that
the American Negro represents an amalgam into which has
entered the genes of African Negroes, whites of many nations
and social classes, and some American Indians and that as far
as his physical characters are concerned the American Negro
represents the successful blending of these three principal
elements into a unique biological type. All his characters are
perfectly harmonic, and there is every reason to believe that
he represents a good and desirable biological type. His bi-
ological future is definitely bright. Should it, however, tran-
spire that the present legislative and social barriers are main-
tained in his disfavor, there can be no doubt that the present
blended or intermediate status of his physical characters will
be much altered and that he will tend to approximate more
closely the African Negro status than the white.

14

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

THE Jews are almost always referred to in popular par-
lance as a "race'*; but it is not only the man in the street
who does this, for scientists, philosophers, politicians,
medical men, and many other types of professional men like-
wise speak of the Jews as a "race." When reference is made to
the Jewish "race," what is implied is that there exists a defi-
nite, though widely scattered, group of people, who are
physically and behaviorally distinguishable from all other
"races" the "Jewish race."

The so-called Jewish "race" is generally held to be char-
acterized by a combination of physical and behavioral traits
which renders any member of it recognizable anywhere on
earth. The physical traits are held to be short to middling
stature, a long hooked nose, greasy skin, dark complexion,
black, often wavy hair, thick lips, and a tendency to run to
fat in women.

The characteristic behavioral traits are said to be aggressive-
ness, "loudness," unscrupulousness, considerable brain power,
peculiar gestures, both of the hands and the face, and a quality
of looking and behaving in a "Jewish" manner, hard to define,
but nevertheless real.

There are many people who claim to be able to distinguish
a Jew from all other people simply by the total appearance
which he presents, even when his back is all that is visible to
the observer.

It is not only non-Jews who assert these things and who
make such claims, but the Jews as a whole have prided them-
selves on the "fact" that they are God's Chosen People and
hence distinguished from all other peoples. Most Jews have
insisted that they belong to a distinct "race" of mankind, the
"Jewish race." The Jews have, in fact, presented no exception

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 219

to the general rule, that every human entity considers itself
just a little better than "the others."

Whatever may be generally believed about the Jews, and
whatever the latter may think of themselves, it is high time
that the facts be dispassionately presented, together with an
interpretation of their significance. Assertions and denials are
of little value when they are based on emotion or when they
are based on misinterpreted observation or both. It is only
when the actual facts are clearly presented in the light of
scientific investigation and correctly interpreted that assertions
and denials are in order, but they are very different from those
which are usually made, and they are not of the kind which
is likely to appeal to persons who prefer to accept what their
emotions dictate rather than be persuaded by scientific demon-
stration.

What, then, has the anthropologist to say in answer to the
question "Are the Jews a 'race' or any other kind of entity?"
Do they possess distinguishable physical and behavioral traits?
If they do, why do they? Are any of these alleged traits inborn
or are they all acquired?

These are some of the questions with which we shall deal
in the present chapter.

Do the Jews possess a community of physical characters
which marks them out as a distinct ethnic group among the
peoples of mankind? To this question the answer of science
is an unequivocal "No." This does not mean that the Jews are
not recognizable as a distinct group, but it does mean that
they are not distinguishable as such upon the basis of physical
characters. If they are not distinguishable as a distinct group
upon physical grounds, upon what basis then are they dis-
tinguishable as a group at all? The answer to that question is:
primarily, and almost entirely, upon cultural grounds, and
upon cultural grounds alone.

We may now proceed to discuss the evidence for these state-
ments.

Our sole authority for the early physical history of the Jews
is, at present, the Old Testament. The physical anthropology

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE*'?

of this work is far from consistent, but from it the following
facts may be pieced together: The ancestors of the early Jews
lived on the stretch of land skirting the western bank of the
Euphrates. The home of Terah, Abraham's father, was Ur of
Chaldees, close to the Persian Gulf; here and to the southwest
lived numerous Arab tribes, all of whom spoke closely re-
lated languages which, after the "brownish" son of Noah,
Shem, we customarily term Semitic (Shemitic). The original
converts to the religion which Abraham had founded were
drawn from several of these Arab tribes. Their physical dif-
ferences, if any, were probably negligible. But shortly after
they had established themselves as a distinct religious group
intermixture commenced, first with the Canaanites of the
lowlands, with whom they had traded for some time, and then
with the Amorites of the highlands of the southwest. The
Amorites are supposed to have been distinguished by a high
frequency of red hair. The Hivites, Amalekites, Kenites,
Egyptians, and the Hittites all mixed with the Jews during this
early period of their history, as did many other peoples men-
tioned in the Old Testament.

There is good reason to believe that the peoples mentioned
were characterized by somewhat different frequencies of one
or more distinctive physical characters. Thus, we know that
the Amorites showed a high frequency of red hair, while
the Hittites, who spoke an Indo-Germanic language, pre-
sented two types, a tall, heavy bearded, hook-nosed type, and
a moderately tall, beardless type with thick lips, a straight nose
with wide nostrils, and sunken eyes.

Thus we see that already in the earliest period of their
development the people whom we now call Jews were a
much mixed group, and while for classificatory purposes they
might all be lumped together as Mediterranean in type, there
can be no question that they were at this period very far from
being a people of "pure" ancestry. Owing to their geographic
position and relations we can be virtually certain that the
peoples of the East from whom the Jews originated and the

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 221

many others with whom they subsequently mixed were them-
selves of much mixed ancestry.

During the period ot the Exodus (1220 B.C.) there was
further intermixture with the peoples with whom they came
into contact, principally the types embraced under the term
Egyptians and probably, also, some Hamitic peoples. Some
622 crania recovered from a Jewish cemetery at Lachish, dating
back to approximately 750 B. c. show marked resemblances to
those of the Dynastic Egyptians. 1 This is not to suggest that
all Jews at this period resembled Egyptians, but it does sug-
gest something vastly more significant than that, namely, that
already, as early as 750 B. c., there existed local groups of Jews
who in their physical characters resembled, or were identical
with, the population among whom they were living and dif-
fered from other groups calling themselves Jews. This is, of
course, exactly the state of affairs that we encounter today, and
there is every reason to believe that it has been increasingly so
from the earliest times. In other words, the Jews were never at
any time characterized by a community of physical characters,
but generally varied according to the populations among whom
they lived. This would mean either that they originated from
these populations or that they had become physically identified
with them as a result of intermixture. We shall see that the
latter explanation is the one which most nearly agrees with
the facts.

During the Diaspora the Jews have been dispersed to prac-
tically every part of the earth and have intermixed with
numerous peoples. In the sixth century B. c., during the
Babylonian captivity, there was some intermixture with many
Mesopotamian peoples. During the Hellenistic period, in the
fourth century B. c., Jews followed Alexander the Great into
the Hellenistic world, into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Mace-
donia, to mention a few of the more important regions into
which they penetrated and settled. The pattern followed by

i Risdon, "A Study of the Cranial and other Human Remains from Palestine
Excavated at Tell Duweir (Lachish)/' Biometrika, XXXI (1939), 99-166.

s>22 ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

these Jews was identical with that which the Jews have always
followed with such great success: they took over the language
of the Greek-speaking populations and in general identified
themselves with Hellenistic culture.

In the second century B. c., at the time of the Maccabees,
there commenced the movement of the Jews into the Roman
world which carried them to the farthest corners of the Roman
Empire, especially to Western Europe and particularly to
Spain, Italy, France, and the Rhineland of Germany. A very
large number of Jews settled along the Rhine in the region
of Frankfurt, Worms, Cologne, and Trier. The language
spoken in that region during the Middle Ages was adopted by
the Jews and is preserved, with but little modification, to this
day in the form of Yiddish. It is preserved in its purest form
practically unchanged to the present day in certain Cantons
of Switzerland. In its Eastern European form it is spoken by
many more Jews than speak Hebrew or any other single
language.

During the eleventh century, at the time of the First Crusade,
the plunder and massacre of the Jews by these Christian knights
started a Jewish migration eastward, which was accelerated
into a mass migration after the thirteenth century. These
Rhineland Jews settled in what is now Galicia, Bukovina, and
the southern and western Ukraine. Here they met and merged
with the earlier Jewish settlements and adopted as their com-
mon language the speech of the Rhineland group, Yiddish.
These came to be known as the Ashkenazim (the Hebrew name
for Germany), as distinguished from the Jews of Spanish
origin, the Sephardim.

It has been asserted that the modern Sephardim are a very
much more homogeneous group physically than the Ashke-
nazim and that they "preserve with reasonable fidelity the
racial character of their Palestinian ancestors." 2

That the Sephardic Jews are less variable inlheir characters
than the Ashkenazim is possible, since they may be slightly

2 Coon, "Have the Jews a Racial Identity?" in Jews in a Gentile World
(edited by L Graeber and S. H. Britt), p. 31.

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 223

less mixed. It is, however, very greatly to be doubted that they
preserve with any fidelity at all the "racial" character of their
Palestinian ancestors. This is greatly to be doubted for the
reason that "their Palestinian ancestors" were themselves of
very different types. Indeed, it is doubtful whether anyone
is today in a position to say exactly what the Palestinian an-
cestry of the Jews was; certainly, even less can be said con-
cerning the anthropological characters of the groups which
entered into that ancestry. At the present time it would be
wisest to take the view that if there does exist a significant
physical difference between the Sephardim and the Ashke-
nazim, then that difference is due to the somewhat different
biological history of the two groups. As we shall see there are
a much greater proportion of blond types among the Ashke-
nazim than among the Sephardim. It must be recalled that dur-
ing their residence in Spain, from the beginning of the eleventh
to the end of the fifteenth century, the Sephardim certainly
underwent some admixture with the Moors and for some
three centuries with the non-Moorish populations of Spain
and Portugal.

To list the peoples with whom the Jews have at one time
or another intermixed would include a very large proportion
of the populations of the world. This does not mean that the
Jews as a whole have undergone such mixture, but and this
is the important point that different populations of Jews have
undergone independent and different kinds and degrees of
intermixture with various populations. Now, the result of
such different biological experiences would be, even if the
Jews had started off as a homogeneous group which they
did not that a certain amount of diversification in physical
characters would eventually be produced between different
local groups of Jews. That this is actually what has occurred
is proven both by the historical facts and the analysis of meas-
urable anthropological characters. Thus, in Daghestan in the
Caucasus, only 7 percent of the Jews show light-colored eyes;
among German Jews in Baden, however, this percentage rises
to 51.2; in the city of Vienna the percentage is 30, in Poland

224 ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

45 percent, but among the Samaritans of Jerusalem it is only
11.1 percent. It is the same with hair color. Among the
Samaritans only 3.7 percent showed blond hair; in Italy the
percentage rises to 11.8, in Rumania to 14.7, to 17.9 in
Hungary, 20.4 in England, and 29.0 in Lithuania. In the city
of Riga, Latvia, the proportion is 36 percent. In Jerusalem
Jewish Ashkenazi children showed 40 percent blonds and
30 percent blue eyes, while the Sephardim showed 10 per-
cent blonds and even fewer blue eyes.

The census of schoolchildren in Germany taken in the
nineteenth century under the direction of Virchow, revealed
that among 75,000 Jewish children 32 percent had light hair
and 46 percent light eyes. 3 In Austria these figures were 28
and 54 percent, respectively, and in England 26 and 41 percent.
As Fishberg 4 long ago pointed out, these figures follow the
population trends for blondness as a whole, exemplified by
the figures for England, Germany, and Riga, whereas in Italy,
where the population is predominantly brunette, less than 12
percent of the Jews are blond, and in the Caucasus, North
Africa, and Turkestan the percentage is even less.

Even with respect to that unreliable, but much beloved
child of the anthropologist, the cephalic index 5 or form of
the head, the variation between different local groups of Jews
is considerable. Among London Ashkenazim one finds 28.3
percent of long-heads (dolichocephals), 28.3 percent of mod-
erately round-heads (mesocephals), and 47.4 percent of round
or broad-heads (brachycephals), among South Russian Jews
these figures are, respectively i, 18, and 81 percent, for Lon-
don Sephardim these figures are 17 percent dolichocephalic,
and 34 percent brachycephalic; Galician and Lithuanian

3 Virchow, "Gesammtbericht uber die von der deutschen anthropologischen
Gesellschaft veranlassten Erhebungen iiber die Farbe der Haute, der Haare und
der Augen der Schulkinder in Deutschland/' Archiv fur Anthropologie, XVI
(1886), pp. 275-475. 4 Fishberg, The Jews.

The cephalic index is determined by multiplying the maximum breadth
of the head by 100 and dividing that sum by the maximum length. The
three indices thus yielded are: Less than 76.0 points = long-headed (dolicho-
cephalic), 76.0-80.9 points = medium -headed (mesocephalic), 81.0 points and
over a broad-headed (brachycephalic).

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 225

Jews yield a proportion of 85 percent brachycephals and only
3.8 percent dolichocephals.

If, as is customarily done, the mean or average shape of the

TABLE 2

PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF EYE COLOR AND HAIR. COLOR

AMONG JEWS a
(The figures in parentheses refer to the females)

Region or Group

Eyes
Dark Light

Hair
Dark Fair Red

Dark
Type

Fair
Type

Mixed
Type

Poland

55.0 45.0

96.8 0.5 2.6

57-9

0.5

4i-5

(56.8) (43.2)

(86.4) 8.0 (5.6)

(58.5)

(8-5)

(33-o)

Galicia

53.8 46.1

74.0 21.5 4.3

44.0

13-0

43.0

(60.0) (40.0)

(76.0) (20.0) (4.0)

(51-0)

(16.0)

(33-o)

Ukraine

56-7 43-3

76.4 19.3 4.3

5i-3

16.2

31.0

(61.8) (38.1)

(83.1) (14.0) (2.9)

(68.6)

(6-9)

(24-3)

Southern Russia

64.8 35.2

81.7 14.8 2.4

58.1

10.5

27-9

(75.6) (24.4)

(83.0) (14.6) (3.5)

(68.3)

(4-9)

(24-4)

Lithuania

65.2 34.8

68.1 29.0 2.0

50-7

13.0

36.2

Rumania

48.7 51.3

83.3 14.7 2.8

47.0

ll.O

42.2

Hungary

50-7 49-3

77.1 17.9 5.0

46.0

12.O

42.0

(62.0)

(5-0)

(33-o)

Baden

48.8 51.2

84.9 12.8 2.3

. . .

England

61.3 38.7

77.6 20.4 2.5

. .

. .

(66.8) (33.2)

(88.1) (11.9) (0.0)

...

Italy

67.6 32.3

88.2 11.8 ...

60.2

14.7

25-0

Bosnia

69.1 30.9

80.0 18.2 1.8

. . .

North Africa

83.1 16.9

92.2 5.2 2.6

76.4

4 .6

19.0

Daghestan

93.0 7.0

97.0 0.5 2.5

97.0

3-o

Georgia

89.0 11.0

93.0 5.0 2.0

82.0

3-o

15.0

Turkestan

85.0 15.0

98.0 2.0 ...

85.0

2.O

13.0

Samaritans

88.9 11.1

96.3 3.7 o.o

...

(88.9) (11.1)

(92.6) 0.0 (7.4)

. . *

Karaites

74.0 26.0

94.O 2.O 4.0

70.0

6.0

24.0

Yemen

1OO.O

1OO.O ...

1OO.O

<* From Brutzkus, "Jewish Anthropology/' The Jewish People.

head is given, a very incorrect idea is obtained of the actual
conditions prevailing among the Jews so far as shape of head
is concerned. It is the percentage distribution of the various
head shapes in such a population which gives us a true account
of these conditions. These percentage distributions show that
head shape or cephalic index, like all other characters, is very
variable among the Jews as a whole, the head shape of the

226 ARE THE JEWS A "RACE'?

Jews in various countries varying substantially from one to
another, as is demonstrated in the following table.

TABLE 3

PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF HEAD SHAPE (CEPHALIC INDEX)
IN JEWS OF DIFFERENT REGIONS

Daghestan North Yemen

Cephalic Index Caucasus Europe Africa Arabia

Hyperdolichocephalic (-76)
Dolichocephalic (76-77)
Subdolichocephalic (78-79)
Mesocephalic (80-81)
Subbrachycephalic (82-83)
Brachycephalic (84-85)
Hyperbrachycephalic (86- )

4.70
6.10

17-37
23-94
47- 8 9

2.89
7-36

^B 1
25.78
24.01

5-97

8.47

25-97
24.67

19.48
13.00

9-09
6.49
1.30

71.80
14.10

7-69
2.56

3-85

Number of observations 213 2,641 77 78

o From Kautsky, Are the Jews a Race? The definitions of the cephalic index
vary slightly from those generally accepted, but not enough to affect the dis-
cussion.

This table shows that Caucasian Jews have predominantly
round heads, while those in North Africa, particularly those
in Arabia, are predominantly long-headed and those in Europe
are predominantly of intermediate type.

Sufficient, I hope, has been said concerning the origins of
the Jews and of the variability of only a small selection of
their physical characters, to show how very mixed and how very
variable the Jews are in both their ancestry and their physical
characters. From the standpoint of scientific classification, from
the standpoint of physical anthropology, and from the stand-
point of zoology there is no such thing as a Jewish physical
type, and there is not, nor was there ever, even anything re-
motely resembling a Jewish "race" or ethnic group.

Are the Jews, then, constituted of a number of different
ethnic groups distinguishable from other non-Jewish ethnic
groups? The answer is "No." There are certainly many dif-
ferent types of Jews, but these, in general, do not sufficiently
differ from the populations among whom they live to justify

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 227

their being distinguished from those populations on physical
grounds and classified as distinct ethnic groups. It is quite
impossible to distinguish Jews from most of the native popula-
tions among which they live in the East, in the Orient, and in
many other localities. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, an acute ob-
server and himself a Jew, writes of his difficulty in distinguish-
ing Jews from non-Jews in Palestine, "for in Palestine,'* he
writes, "there is no way of telling at first glance whether a
person is a Christian, a Jew, or a Mohammedan.'* "Very sel-
dom much more seldom, anyway, than in Carlsbad or
Marienbad one sees the characteristic 'Struck* 6 heads or the
Oriental beauties as they were painted in my youth by Sichel.
The so-called 'Jewish nose' too, supposedly an Aramaic-Arab
characteristic, is hardly more frequent than the pug-nose. Noses
of 'western' or 'northern* form predominate (to use Giinther's
nomenclature), and the formation, too, of lips, hair, eyes and
hands is hardly different from the average European types.
One even sees, especially among the children, a surprisingly
large number of blonde and blue-eyed types. In a kindergarten
I counted 32 blondes among 54 children, that is, more than
50 percent." T

Anyone who has lived for any length of time in Italy will
know that it is utterly impossible to tell a Jew from an Italian
in that country. The same is not, how r ever, true of all lands,
for in England, in Germany, and in America it is certainly
possible, with a high degree of accuracy to pick out many per-
sons who are Jews as distinguished from non-Jews of all types.
Is the fact that one can do so due to the physical characters of
these persons, characters which distinguish them from the rest
of the population? Again, the answer is "No!"

6 Hermann Struck, Jewish artist who specialized in rendering the heads of
Jewish orthodox "types."

7 Hirschfeld, Men and Women, pp. 277-78. Hirschfeld adds: "Not pure,
but mixed, races are matter of course biologically. How, then, should there
be 'pure' races among the whites when we consider that every individual
possesses and unites in himself a line of paternal and maternal ancestors em-
bracing thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of generations? How
extraordinarily various must have been the mixture of genes over so long a
period I "

228 ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

There undoubtedly exists a certain quality of looking
Jewish, but this quality is not due so much to any inherited
characters of the persons in question, as to certain culturally
acquired habits of expression, facial, vocal, muscular, and
mental. Such habits do to a very impressive extent influence
the appearance of the individual and determine the impres-
sion which he makes upon others.

The fact is that the Jews are neither a "race" nor an ethnic
group nor yet a number of ethnic groups no more so, in-
deed, than are Catholics, Protestants, or Moslems. It is, in
fact, as incorrect to speak of a "Jewish race" or ethnic group as
it would be to speak of a Catholic, Protestant, or Moslem
"race" or ethnic group. What, then, does the term "Jew"
mean? Strictly speaking, a person is a Jew by virtue of his
adherence to the Jewish religion. If he is not a member of
organized Judaism, then he is not a Jew.

There is, however, another sense in which a person who
does not subscribe to the tenets of the Jewish religion may
nevertheless be correctly described as exhibiting Jewish traits,
in just the same way as we say of a person that he looks or
behaves like a Frenchman, or a German, or a member of any
other national group. The Jews are not a nation, but inter-
estingly enough they have preserved cultural traits, almost
everywhere, which we usually associate with differences in
national culture; these traits, therefore, have a quasi-national
character. The Jews, wherever they have been, have clung
tenaciously to their ancient beliefs and ways of life, more so
than any other Western people of whom we have any knowl-
edge, and they have generally preserved a certain community
of cultural traits. These traits are cultural traits, not biological
ones. Any person who is born into or brought up in a Jewish
cultural environment will acquire the traits of behavior and
certain personality traits peculiar to that culture. These are
the traits which make many Jews socially "visible" in many
of the communities in which they live. These traits, taken col-
lectively, differ sufficiently from those which prevail in the
communities in which Jews generally live, to render them at

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 229

once distinguishable from practically all other members of
each of these communities.

It is extremely difficult to define the "quality of looking
Jewish," even though it is doubtful whether anyone could
be found who would deny that such a quality exists. This
quality is exhibited not only in the facial expression, but in
the whole expression of the body in its movements and in
its gesticulations. No attempt to define this quality will be
made here, because it defies definition; but that it exists in
many Jews and that it is culturally determined there can be
little doubt. The quality is completely lost by persons whose
recent ancestors have abandoned Jewish culture for several
generations and who have themselves been raised in a non-
Jewish culture. It is even lost, or is never developed, in Jews
who have been educated predominantly in a non-Jewish cul-
tural environment. Jews such as the latter are Jews by religion
alone, culturally they belong to whatever culture in which
they have been raised and educated, be it English, French,
German, Italian, or what not.

What makes certain persons or communities of persons
visible or distinguishable as Jews is neither their physical
appearance, nor the fact of their adherence to the religion of
Judaism, but certain cultural traits which they have acquired
in a Jewish cultural environment.

We have, then, a rather interesting situation: A person is
never a Jew by virtue of belonging to some definite physical
type, nor is a person necessarily recognizable as a Jew because
he subscribes to the tenets of the Jewish religion; he is a Jew
by religion, but in every other way he may be culturally non-
Jewish; finally, only those persons are recognizable as Jewish
who exhibit certain behavioral traits commonly associated
with Jews, yet such persons may not subscribe to the Jewish
religion, but to some other religion or to none at all.

We see, then, that actually it is membership in Jewish
culture which makes a person a Jew, and nothing else, not
even his adherence to Judaism.

It is possible to distinguish many Jews from members of

230 ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

other cultural groups for the same reason that it is possible to
distinguish Englishmen from such groups, or Americans,
Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans. Every cultural group
differs by virtue of its difference in culture from every other
cultural group, and each cultural group molds the behavior
of every one of its members according to its own pattern.
Members of one cultural group do not readily fit into the
pattern of another. Because of the complexities which char-
acterize each separate pattern of culture, persons who have
been brought up in one culture cannot and should not be ex-
pected to make a perfect adjustment to a different pattern of
culture however closely related the latter may be. Even when
persons are anxious to free themselves from one culture and
adopt, and bcome part of, another, such persons rarely, if ever,
succeed in making the complete change. Once a cultural pat-
tern has been woven, it is generally not possible to unravel it
and weave a completely new one. The reason for this is that
habits of behavior formed in early life become, in a very real
sense, part of one's second nature; it is notoriously difficult
to throw such habits off in later life.

This, of course, explains why persons of Jewish cultural
background, or persons of any other cultural background, try
as they may, usually fail to free themselves from the condition-
ing effects of that background.

What, in the case of persons who are recognizable as Jews,
are these conditioning effects which render them distinctive to
other cultural groups? Before we attempt an answer to this
question it must be emphasized that not all persons who have
been brought up in a Jewish cultural environment exhibit
Jewish cultural traits. There are many varieties and degrees
of Jewish culture, some being much less intense than others,
and a large proportion of them are modified by the culture
in which the family or community happens to have lived for
some generations. In addition to this, some individuals take
rather more readily to the gentile culture outside the home
than they do to that within the home or local community, while

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE'? 231

still others emancipate themselves very early from the do-
mestic cultural environment.

It will be generally agreed that those persons who are
readily identifiable as Jews almost always originate from the
lower socio-economic classes of their community. As in all
lower socio-economic classes, the conditions of life are not
conducive to the development of gentle manners and refined
thoughts or ways of expressing them. In fact, the very con-
trary is likely to be the case. Good breeding is something
one does not expect from anyone but those who have en-
joyed the necessary opportunities. Jews of the lower socio-
economic classes are no better bred than the members of the
equivalent classes of any other culture, and for the same
reasons: because the struggle to keep body and soul together
had been a full-time job, while the opportunities for develop-
ing into a well-bred person have been rare indeed.

What distinguishes the conduct of persons who are recog-
nizable as Jews from other behavior is, of course, the addition
of a certain cultural quality to that behavior. Thus, persons
who have lived the greater part of their early life in a lower
socio-economic cultural environment generally exhibit a cer-
tain coarseness and wildness of expression in their features.
They habitually feel and think in certain culturally common
ways, and such emotions and thoughts register themselves in
the index which is provided by the thirty-two muscles of ex-
pression in the face.

Just as there is such a thing as an English, a German, a
French, an Italian, and even an American cast of features, so
there is such a thing as a Jewish cast of face. This cast of face
is often taken to be biologically determined, but the fact is
that it is culturally determined in precisely the manner which
has been indicated.

Add to the culturally determined cast of face traditionally
determined gesticulations of the face and body, character of
speech, together with certain likewise culturally determined
preferences for color combinations, style, and total ensemble

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

of clothes, and we have a powerful association of traits which
readily enables one to distinguish certain Jewish persons from
non-Jews. That all these traits are culturally determined is
readily proven by the fact that every last trace of them may
be completely lost in a single generation following the adop-
tion of a non-Jewish culture.

It should be clear that no trait is in itself objectionable, but
certain differences in behavior exhibited by some Jews have
been so distinguished by those who see reason to do so. Many
of the traits which non-Jews find objectionable in Jews are the
very traits upon which some of the latter pride themselves.
Aggressiveness and the habit of gesticulation with the hands,
for example.

Centuries of dispossession, massacre, oppression, and dis-
crimination have forced upon many Jews the absolute neces-
sity of a certain amount of aggressiveness or else the in-
evitability of perishing. Aggressiveness is a quality of great
survival value, and it is very fortunate that the Jews were
able to save themselves from complete destruction by de-
veloping it to a high degree. That those who have forced the
Jews to develop this quality should find it objectionable is,
of course, the usual sad logic by which the wrongheaded con-
duct themselves in these matters. Oppression produces aggres-
siveness. When oppression and discrimination against the Jews
shall have ceased, their aggressiveness will vanish; but as long
as that oppression and discrimination continues, they will need
their aggressiveness in order to hold their own in the world.
From the standpoint of the scientist objectively evaluating
its quality within the framework in which it functions, the
aggressiveness of many Jews is a highly desirable quality,
since it enables them to survive in a hostile world. With the
disappearance of this hostility, the necessity for aggressiveness
will disappear. But for those who maintain this hostility to
object to the aggressiveness which they have forced upon the
Jews is something less than reasonable.

With respect to the gesticulations of Jews, these are often
called vulgar by peoples who are not given to expressing them-

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 233

selves in any other way than by speech. Such a judgment is,
however, purely subjective. Many Jews regard their habits of
gesticulation as a kind of auxiliary language, without which
they are practically tongue-tied, and those who have studied
these gestures find them very expressive indeed. Neverthe-
less, those who indulge in them are at once rendered identifi-
able thereby as Jews, in spite of the fact that non-Jews may
acquire the same habits of gesticulation by association with
Jews.

Interestingly enough the gestures customarily used by many
Jews have been asserted to be "racially" determined. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. Scientific investigation of
the gestural behavior of Eastern Jews and Southern Italians
living in New York City, show that the more members of
each of these groups become assimilated into the so-called
Americanized community, the more do they lose the gestural
traits associated with the original group. 8 Gesture has no con-
nection whatever with biological factors, but merely represents
a mode of expression peculiar to certain cultural conditions
alone.

We see, then, that it is, indeed, not a difficult matter to
distinguish many Jews by means of certain traits which they
exhibit; but it should also be clear that those traits are all
culturally determined and have no connection whatever with
inborn biological factors. Neither on physical nor on mental
grounds can the Jews be distinguished as an ethnic group.

This brings us to the oft-repeated assertion that the Jews
have a greater amount of brain power than other peoples.
This statement is, of course, not made in order to flatter Jews,
but is rather urged as something against them, because, it is
held, owing to their superior brain power one is thereby
placed at a disadvantage in competition with them.

Science knows of no evidence which would substantiate the
claim that Jews or any other people have better brains than
any other. This is not to say that such differences may not
exist; they may, but if they do, science has been unable to

8ron, Gesture and Environment.

234 ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"?

demonstrate them. The business acumen, the scholastic, and
the interpretative musical abilities of Jews have been specially
cultivated. The life of the merchant has been forced upon
Jews under the most unfavorable circumstances; under such
conditions he has in each generation been forced to develop
a sharpness of wit which would enable him to survive. Scholar-
ship has been a revered tradition among Jews for many cen-
turies, furthermore, it has, in the modern world, often been
the one means of raising himself socially or of escaping from
the depressing conditions of life in the ghetto. It is a fact that
in order to make his way in the world the Jew has had to
offer a great deal more than anyone else; he has simply been
forced to do better than anyone else. 9

It may be that owing to the great variety of intermixture
which Jews have undergone their considerable physical vari-
ability is also exhibited in their mental capacities, that there
may be a somewhat greater frequency of mentally well-
endowed individuals among them. Whether this is so or not we
cannot tell, and it would in any event be of no great moment
if we could, for the reason that it is not so much biological
as cultural factors which, other things being more or less equal,
determine what a mind shall be like. As Boas has written: "Our
conclusion is that the claim to biologically determined mental
qualities of races is not tenable. Much less have we a right
to speak of biologically determined superiority of one race
over another. Every race contains so many genetically dis-
tinct strains, and the social behavior is so entirely dependent
upon the life experience to which every individual is exposed,
that individuals of the same type when exposed to different
surroundings will react quite differently, while individuals of
different types when exposed to the same environment may
react the same way/' 10

The facts, then, lead to the following conclusions: Owing
to the original mixed ancestry of the Jews and their subsequent

The Negro, on the other hand, has been forced to the opposite extreme.
In order to succeed at all he must, as a rule, do worse than anyone else. He
mustn't matter.

10 Boas, "Racial Purity/' Asia, XL (1940), 234.

ARE THE JEWS A "RACE"? 235

history of intermixture with every people among whom they
have lived and continue to live, the Jews of different regions
are neither genetically nor physically equivalent. In each
country the Jews closely resemble the general population in
their physical characters, but many Jews may differ from that
population in behavioral characters because they have been
primarily educated in a Jewish cultural environment rather
than in that of the general population. As Huxley and Haddon
have said: "The word Jew is valid more as a socio-religious
or pseudo-national description than as an ethnic term in any
genetic sense. Many 'Jewish' characteristics are without doubt
much more the product of Jewish tradition and upbringing,
and especially of reaction against external pressure and per-
secution, than of heredity." 1X

It would be better to call the Jews a quasi-national rather
than a pseudo-national group for there is nothing "pseudo"
about their nationalistic cultural traits, even though they may
not be definitely recognized as a nation neatly delimited by
definite geographic boundaries. It is by virtue of the traits of
this quasi-Jewish national culture that a Jewish community
may be said to exist and that any person exhibiting these traits
may be recognized as a Jew, whether he is an adherent of the
Jewish religion or not. Such traits are not inborn, but ac-
quired, and they have nothing whatever to do with biological
or so-called "racial" conditions. They are conditioned by
culture alone.

A Jewish physical type has been neither preserved nor trans-
mitted down to the present day, because such a type never
existed; if such a type had existed it would long ago have been
dissolved as a result of the subsequent intermixture of Jews
with other peoples. What the Jews have preserved and trans-
mitted have been neither physical nor mental "racial" traits,
but religious and cultural traditions and modes of conduct.

The final conclusion is, then, that the Jews are not and
never have been a "race" or ethnic group, but they are, and
always have been, a socio-cultural entity best described as a
"quasi-national" group.
11 Huxley and Haddon, We Europeans, pp. 73-74.

15

"RACE" AND DEMOCRACY

IN THE PRESENT CONDITION of domestic and world affairs we
are, all of us, daily confronted with many conflicting, con-
tradictory, and often novel viewpoints. It must be our task,
seriously undertaken, to evaluate these ideas and viewpoints
for ourselves, so that we may arrive at a just decision concern-
ing them which will enable us to act effectively and for the
best interest of everyone concerned. This chapter is written
from the standpoint of those who believe that democracy is
the best form of government for a free and intelligent people
a form of government in which every citizen has, or may have,
an effective voice in regulating the manner in which he and
his fellows shall be governed.

If it be agreed that democracy is the form of government
which prevails in this country and that among us live citizens
who are members of different ethnic groups, it is a just and
proper inquiry and in the interests of us all, to ask whether
there are any physical and mental qualities peculiar to any of
these groups which our social order needs to consider in the
government of this country. Today, more than ever, this ques-
tion needs to be asked and the evidence sympathetically dis-
cussed, for we are today facing one of those recurring periods
in the history of our development in which payment is being
exacted for our mistakes as well as for those of an earlier gen-
eration. Many of those mistakes are a matter of very recent
history. It will serve us not at all to lament them; they have
been made and have rebounded upon us. The monster that
has been let loose upon the world is of our own making, and
whether we are willing to face the fact or not, we are, all of
us, individually and collectively, responsible for the ghastly
form which he has assumed. Moreover, something of each of
us has gone into the making of this Frankenstein, whose name
is Hitler and Naziism. If we are to combat this monster sue-

"RACE" AND DEMOCRACY 337

cessfully, then we must become fully aware of the means by
which we may do so. For the present conflict, at home and
abroad, is as much one of ideas as of arms ideas which are
being made to infiltrate the mind in such a manner that the
victim is, for the most part, unaware of what is happening
until it is too late.

Let it be recalled that the second World War is the first in
which ideas have been dropped from the skies, over the radio
waves as well as from airplanes, before the bombs them-
selves began to wreak their inhuman havoc. Among these
ideas, explicitly as well as in disguised form, racism played
and plays a prominent part. Linking the Jews with whatever
it is desired to discredit is the first step in the process of the
conquest and confusion of thought. It is an old and effective
device used by unscrupulous politicians for sidetracking the
public attention from vital issues and from their own nefarious
activities. In Europe we have witnessed the imposition of a
purely mythological dogma, first upon the Jews and then upon
the Poles, a dogma which deprives all those who are not so-
called "Aryans" of their civil rights and of the right to earn
a living. The Poles have been beaten with their own stick, for
their treatment of the Jews in prewar days was based upon
the very same ideas and prejudices that the Germans have
now put into effect against them. 1 What may at first be prac-
ticed on a local scale may spread until it is practiced nationally,
and what is practiced nationally may spread until it becomes
international. One nation learns from another. It is for us to
decide whether it is the spirit of the Nazi racist or the spirit of
democracy, of freedom and brotherhood, which is to become
both national and international.

If men have acted upon ideas and beliefs which have brought
the world to its present sorry state, then surely it should be
clear to everyone in his proper senses that something is seri-
ously wrong with such ideas and beliefs. And is there anywhere
anyone who can for a moment entertain a doubt upon that

i It is regrettable to have to record that the Polish government in exile,
its army, and official representatives maintain these prejudices unchanged.

238 "RACE" AND DEMOCRACY

score? If humanity is to be saved, and it is no less a matter than
that, every one of us must make the greatest endeavor in his
power to clarify his thoughts upon this most urgent of all
problems with which we, as human beings, are today faced.
We have too long taken things for granted and have lived too
easily off our prejudices. If it is our privilege and our right to
live and work upon this earth, then we must once more clearly
realize that with that privilege and that right is inseparably
linked the obligation to make this earth an increasingly better
and happier place for all who shall live on it.

In the free democracy of the United States of America we
have every opportunity open to us to make our lives a bless-
ing to ourselves and to all the generations which will follow
us in this great land first, and perhaps later, by our example,
in all the rest of the world.

Europe, the Europe from which we all escaped, whether we
came on the Mayflower or on a cargo vessel, shows us today
where we shall end if we think that the shape of the nose or
the color of the skin has anything to do with human values and
culture. The lights in Europe have gone out, one by one;
extinguished by the evil breath of men. Let us do everything
in our power to keep the lights burning here, so that we may
continue to live in enlightenment and to know and enjoy the
benefits of a free society, benefits which will ever increase and
will soon, let us hope extend to the uttermost limits of the
earth.

How may we achieve this? The answer is in two words:
"enlightened action." Action without a thoroughly sound
basis in thought, that is, in analyzed fact, to support it is
worthless, as is the soundest thought which is not realized in
action. The first is dangerous; the second sterile. Thought
without action and action without thought eventually lead to
the same disastrous results.

In the preceding pages we have examined the concept of
"race" in the light of its historical development, and we have
analyzed it in terms of the most recent and soundest scientific
evidence. We have seen how erroneous is the general concep-

"RACE" AND DEMOCRACY 239

tion of "race" a conception which presupposes the existence
of different groups of mankind, each believed to possess in-
born physical and mental traits that are reflected in differ-
ences in national outlook, culture, social behavior, and so
forth.

We have seen that far too great significance has been at-
tributed to both the physical and the mental differences exist-
ing in some degree between different ethnic groups. Within
certain broad limits we can demonstrate the physical differ-
ences, and we can observe those of culture and behavior; but
the one thing that we cannot do is to prove, or demonstrate,
that differences of behavior and culture have anything to do
with innate or inherited qualities.

Certainly there appear to be differences in temperament,
intellectual attitudes, and cultural behavior between ethnic
groups; but there is no reason to believe that these differences
are inborn. As we have seen, for the most part they seem to
be due to differences in cultural conditions, different social
backgrounds, and differences in economic conditions. The
acquired nature of these differences should be strongly enough
indicated to us in the United States, where these differences
have been given a chance to merge into a fairly uniform char-
acter, and there has emerged, as a result, a typical American
temperament or psychology, contrasting sharply with the Brit-
ish, French, German, and Italian psychology or temperament.

We have seen that the physical differences which exist be-
tween the varieties of mankind cannot be intelligently dis-
cussed in terms of physical or cultural superiority to one
another. There are no superior or inferior groups by birth.
If there are any inborn mental differences associated with the
physical differences which distinguish different ethnic groups,
then science has been unable to discover them. Physical dif-
ferences are purely external and are only superficially as-
sociated with cultural differences existing or imputed. Yet
these external differences provide a convenient peg upon
which to hang all sorts of imagined internal differences, moral,
Intellectual, mental, and emotional. In this way physical dif-

240 "RACE" AND DEMOCRACY

ferences become the basis for social discrimination and the
creation of social inequalities. But science is aware of no such
association between external and internal characters, except,
of course, such as are socially produced.

In our own society such differences of behavior and char-
acter as seem to exist between ethnic groups are due princi-
pally to inequalities in the opportunities for social and eco-
nomic betterment which have been afforded them, not to
unalterable inborn or hereditary differences. No ethnic group
has a monopoly of good or bad hereditary qualities. The
existence of any ethnic group at the present time is proof of
the fact that it possesses a majority of desirable qualities,
otherwise it could not have survived to the present time.

Give every ethnic group within our democracy an equal
social opportunity, and it may be predicted that one will find
between minds only such differences as now exist between in-
dividuals of the same ethnic group who have enjoyed equal
cultural opportunities. Every human being, whatever his
ethnic affiliation, differs from every other in his make-up and
has had a somewhat different inheritance and different op-
portunities. Would not this be a very dull world were we all
poured to the same mold? We should be bored to tears! But
as things .are, the great reservoir of diversity upon which we
can draw will always serve to enliven and increase our interest
in life.

The important differences are not differences between "ra-
cial" averages, but between individuals; and it is because of
the existence of individual differences, which have little
or nothing to do with "race," that a true democracy must aim
to devote its attention to individual differences regardless of
whether the individual has a narrow nose or a broad one. A
democracy must recognize differences and make every possible
allowance for them the differences which individuals ex-
hibit, not as members of different ethnic groups, but as in-
dividual citizens, individuals differing in innumerable ways
and capable of making individualized contributions of all
sorts to our common culture. It is for this reason that democ-

"RACE" AND DEMOCRACY 241

racy must be actively concerned with the task of affording
every individual, regardless of group affiliation, adequate op-
portunities for self-development, so that the best that every
individual has within him to give shall be given, both for his
own happiness and for that of his fellows. We may here recall
the words of a great American, Charles Sumner: "The true
greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the
greatness of the individual/'

Let us be human beings first and put the dangerous myth
of "race** in its proper place in the Museum of Ugly Human
Errors.

Stressing superficial differences between people only helps
to maintain an illusion in our minds that there may be more
fundamental differences behind them. What we, as informed
and enlightened citizens living under a democratic form of
government, ought to do is to stress the fundamental kinship
of all mankind; to stress the likenesses that we all bear to one
another; to recognize the essential unity of all mankind in
the very differences which individuals of all ethnic groups
display.

Every political system is capable of some improvement, and
our democracy is no exception. We stand to profit immediately
by giving up acting on "racial" mythology the "racial"
mythology that lurks in the minds of most of us and contrib-
utes so much to social friction. But we cannot change the
conditions of social friction merely by changing our minds.
As members of an unregimented thinking democracy, we
should study these things in order to keep them from adding
to social friction, realizing that we have been and" are being
snobs and that there will be a price to pay if we go on being
snobs. Let us by acting upon such facts and their interpreta-
tion as have been presented in the pages of this book afford
the benefits of our democracy to all who live in it, so that we
may truly "promote the general welfare and secure the bless-
ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." This is the
principle which is enshrined in the Constitution which cre-
ated the Government of the United States.

242 "RACE" AND DEMOCRACY

American democracy, at least in theory, is built upon the
fundamental principle that all people should enjoy the same
prerogatives and privileges because, by and large, they all pos-
sess the potentialities which would enable them to benefit by
them, individually and mutually, and this is the first and
greatest of the principles laid down in the Declaration of In-
dependence, a document which represents the noblest and
truest declaration of the principles of human liberty ever
penned. Science and humane thought support this principle
to the full, and Vice-President Henry Wallace has well de-
fined it as the genetic basis of democracy.

The flaring of latent "racial" enmities in times of economic
stress is an association of events which has never been more
painfully evident than it is today. Everywhere in the world
under conditions of economic stress "race" prejudice has be-
come a powerful weapon with which minority groups have
been beaten. Physical and cultural differences are seized upon
and made the basis for group antagonism and discrimination.
Trivial things, such as differences in manners, polish, social
backgrounds, religious beliefs, and so forth, which if sympa-
thetically understood would be points of interest and value,
become the bases of distrust. Just as a child runs to its mother
as a familiar refuge when in difficulties, so most of us run
to our own group when we feel insecure, and we fancy that
anyone not of our own group is a bogeyman and the cause
of all our troubles. In a democracy there should be no place
for such childish conduct; nor should there be for the con-
ditions which give rise to it, namely, improper education and
economic insecurity. We can remedy these conditions. We
can improve education and social and economic conditions
so that all men may share in them equally. The power lies
within our own hands; let us then use it.

We are the result of the mixing of many different ethnic
groups; every one of us is a much-mixed alloy, having all the
added strength and qualities which the alloy possesses as com-
pared with the unalloyed metal. Let us use that strength for

"RACE" AND DEMOCRACY 243

the common good. Yes, so that the many may become truly
one.

It is a fundamental tenet of democracy that it must balance
the interests of all its component groups and citizens. As we
have seen, there is nothing in the nature of any group, ethnic
or otherwise, which gives it less weight in the balance of de-
mocracy than any other. That being the case, we must recog-
nize and act upon this first principle set out in our Declaration
of Independence that "All men are created equal. They are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
To secure these rights governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed/'

After one hundred and sixty years science joins hands with
humanity to ask Americans whether they will accept the chal-
lenge of those words.

16

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

MY PURPOSE in this book has been to clarify the reader's
thinking upon the much-vexed and always tenden-
tiously discussed problem of "race," to set out the facts,
criticize existing notions, make a suggestion here and there,
analyze causes, and present the whole to the reader in such a
way as to encourage him to draw his own conclusions concern-
ing the kind of solution or solutions that would be most effec-
tive in solving the "race" problem.

In the preceding chapters I have carefully discussed and
set out the "causes" of the "race" problem. It would seem to
me that an attack upon these causes should suggest itself as
the most obvious approach to the solution of the problem. If
we eliminate the causes, we shall also eliminate the effects
which they produce.

We saw that the term "race" itself, as it is generally ap-
plied to man, is scientifically without justification and that
as commonly used the term corresponds to nothing in reality.
We saw that the word is predominantly an emotional one, and
we were able to trace something of its rise and development
in what has invariably been a background or matrix of strong
feeling and prejudiced thought. A person lacking an under-
standing of human nature, or any person for that matter,
might, in an off-guard moment, be led to say that "in spite of"
its emotional origins and character the concept of "race" has
taken firm hold of the cultures of the West. But quite clearly
it is not "in spite of" but "because of" its emotional history
and character that the concept of "race" has taken firm hold
of Western man. It is useless for man to pretend that he is
the master of reason when he is in fact a creature of emotion.
As Caldecott wrote:

Logicians have but ill defin'd
As rational the human mind,

THE SOLUTION? 345

Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.

Let us frankly face the fact that most people are emotional
creatures and use their minds mostly in order to support their
prejudices. "The truth shall make ye free." But most men
wish neither to know the truth nor to be free. 1 Most men wish
to know the kind of things that will support them in the cul-
ture of which they form a part. That is surely readily under-
standable! They live by what they learn from their culture.
What teachers in the classroom and instructors in the lecture-
hall may tell them is, for the majority of men, of little import.
What matters is what actually goes on in the world. That is
reality, the only reality, indeed, that most men ever know. A
culture lives what it believes in, not what it aspires to be. Men
will fight to the death for what they believe in, but not for
the ideals which they have unrealistically been told they ought
to believe in and in which they have no faith. These they will
combat if they conflict with their own conception of reality.
For the support of such conceptions men do not generally re-
quire the sanction of scientifically established fact. Emotions,
prejudices, and metaphysics are usually quite sufficient. As
Stephen Spender has remarked, "Very few people in the
world's history have died for the sake of 'being definite/ think-
ing clearly, and behaving morally without the background of
a belief in any metaphysical system." As we have already seen,
"race" is for most men such a conception of reality. You can-
not convince a child that there is no such thing, nor can you
explain the facts to him, however simply and clearly you may
present them, when outside the classroom, on the street, at
home, everywhere about him, he sees that "race" is a real
thing. To make him see that this "real" thing has been arti-
ficially created would be a simple matter in the hands of a
good teacher, but whatever she did would at once be undone
by the world outside the classroom unless conditions outside

i Fromm, Escape from Freedom; Montagu, "Escape from Freedom," Psy-
chiatry, V (1942), 122-29.

246 THE SOLUTION?

the classroom were favorable, which, as we know, the) gen-
erally are not.

I would not for this reason lightly regard the teaching of
the facts about "race" in the schools; on the other hand, I
recommend such teaching unequivocally and unreservedly.
But I wish to make it quite clear here that we must not expect
too much from such attempts at education in the schools, for
the so-called education received at school is only a small part
of that larger education which men receive from direct contact
with the world. It is the world men live in, not the school, and
what the world teaches that is to them real. What the school
teaches is unreal and theoretical. The three "r's" are in many
instances the only concrete things with which it leaves them.

This is the sad and tragic state to which we have come. The
dissociation between what is taught in the schools and what
is taught by real life has become so glaring that the schools
and all who are associated with them have fallen into some-
thing very like contempt, since as measured by the standard
of successful achievement in the "real world" they do not meas-
ure up at all. "That's all right for a school child," is a common
saying; or "That's academic."

It is, or should be, quite obvious, then, that education in
the schools is not enough; since what is taught in the schools
is not what men believe, and men will not act upon what they
do not believe. As the seventeenth century Portuguese philoso-
pher Francesco Sanchez put it, "ideas taught do not have
greater power than they receive from those who are taught."
What, then, must we do in order to persuade men to imple-
ment the right ideas w r ith the power of their convictions? To
present to them the right ideas is only half the task; we must
also provide them with the proper supports for such ideas and
eliminate the conditions which render the support of such
ideas difficult. If we can remove those conditions and substi-
tute others for them, we shall have made possible a substantial
change in the beliefs of men and in many of the notions upon
which they customarily act.

Do we know what those conditions are? I think we do, at

THE SOLUTION? 247

least a goodly number of them. We have seen that frustration
and aggression are linked factors which play a very important
part in preparing the individual personality for "racial" hos-
tility. But we also saw that neither frustration nor aggression
lead to "racial" hostility unless the conditions are such as to
favor such a development. These conditions are always arti-
ficially constructed in economic, political, and social frame-
works wherein "racial" hostility can be used to advantage by
any group within that framework.

Quite clearly, any culture or part of a culture which finds
it necessary to create and maintain hostilities between differ-
ent groups of men instead of encouraging their social devel-
opment by mutual exchange and cooperation of interests to
the advantage of all, any culture which does the former and
not the latter is obviously sick. For the great principle of
biological as well as of social development is cooperation, not
antagonism.

We have already seen that modern science has demonstrated
that there is strong reason to believe that cooperation and al-
truism, have played more important roles in the evolution of
animal species, including man, than have the egoistic forces in
nature. A healthy competition is, I believe, desirable in any so-
ciety; but it must be a competition, not in the interest alone of
the individual or his particular group, but in the interest of all
society, and not only of society as a whole, but of all men
everywhere. No man can be free until all his fellows are
free. Those who exploit their society for their own interest,
whether they are aware of it or not, are working against the
interest of their society. They produce imbalances, top-
heaviness, disoperative rather than cooperative conditions.
Obviously, where self-interest is the dominant motive of the
individuals in a society, the society will be characterized by a
fundamental spirit of disorganization. In such a society the
individual thinks of himself first; of society last. He will so
order his conduct as to attain his ends as quickly as possible
without any concern for the consequences to society. If Ne-
groes, or members of any other ethnic or minority group can

248 THE SOLUTION?

be utilized, to their disadvantage, in the attainment of those
ends, there are pitifully few individuals in our culture who
would hesitate not to use them so the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, the Bill of Rights, the teaching of the churches and
the schools, and common human decency notwithstanding.

Who is to blame for this sorry condition? Surely not the
common manl When he leaves school and goes out into the
world and attempts to behave like a Christian, he very soon
discovers that if he persists in the attempt he is likely to suffer
the fate of Christ. In order to survive, he finds it necessary to
adapt himself to the conditions of life as he finds them which
he does. In doing so he fails both himself and his society, for,
let us ask ourselves, to what is it that we adapt ourselves?
Without enumerating the unhappy catalogue, we may answer
at once: to conditions as we find them. We accept and adapt
ourselves to evil as if it were a good. Is this a failure of nerve,
of courage? I do not think so. On the other hand, I believe
that most men accept the world for what it is, believing that
it is so ordered by some immutable power and that things are
as they are because that is the way they are, and little, if any-
thing, can be done to change them. "You can't change human
nature/* is the common expression of this viewpoint.

It seems to me that if what I have said is true, then our only
hope lies in education of the right sort. If we can succeed in
reorganizing our system of education from top to bottom,
making our principal purpose the cultivation of human beings
living in one great cooperative enterprise with other human
beings, we shall have gone a long way toward achieving the
new society.

Our educational systems have not really been educational
systems at all; they are really systems of instruction. We in-
struct; we do not educate; and otherwise we leave the individ-
ual to shift for himself. Instruction in reading, writing, and
arithmetic do not constitute a sufficient preparation for living
with complex human beings in a rather complex world. In
order to live happily and efficiently in such a world it is neces-
sary to understand not only the nature of human beings but

THE SOLUTION? 249

how they came to be as we now find them, both culturally and
physically. Surely, our first and last task in education should
be to inspire our growing citizens with a full understanding
and appreciation of humanity; in what it means to be human.
The facts, the spiritual teachings, and the examples, are all
ready to our hand. What is to prevent us from weaving them
into the pattern of the lives which we have in our making?
School boards, vested interests, and corrupt politicians are
strong forces in our society; but stronger forces than they have
been overcome in the past and will be again.

If a sufficient number of people can be found who are will-
ing to unite their energies in order to secure the type of edu-
cation I have suggested for the schools, or if a nation-wide
movement were organized to secure it, I am confident that
one of the most effective steps will have been taken toward
the dissolution of the "race" problem, as well as many other
problems from which we are at present suffering. I do notice
that any other solution is feasible.

The facts of life assume a meaning only when they are re-
lated to action in living. The meaning of a word lies in the
action it produces. We can teach children to believe in hu-
manity, and we can teach them to act upon what they believe.
We can teach them the truth about the present character of
our society, and equip them to play their part in improving it,
instead of subtly priming them to support the status quo.

It is futile to assert that every man lives in the type of so-
ciety he deserves. The fact is that most men have little to do
with the type of society in which they live. They are brought
up in it and generally accept it unquestioningly. They may
suffer to some extent themselves and be the cause of suffering
in others; but they accept this kind of suffering as inevitable
in the nature of things. Their social consciousnesses are prac-
tically nonexistent.

How, then, under such conditions, can we ever hope to
solve such a problem as the "race" problem? Obviously, by
altering those conditions to such an extent as to produce a
profound awareness in every man of his proper place in so-

2 5 o THE SOLUTION?

ciety, to make him aware of the fact that he must become an
active, not a passive, instrument in the government of his
society and that government can be, and must be, for the
benefit of all the people without discrimination of color, class,
or creed.

One cannot teach people these things merely by saying
them; they can only be made a part of an attitude of mind if
they are understood at an early age as part of a whole in-
tegrated system of education in humanity.

To teach children the facts about the meaning of the many
varieties of mankind is alone insufficient; as I have said, such
teaching can achieve very little, unless it becomes part of a
planned, integrated, complete experience in the meaning and
significance of humanity.

As far as I am aware, no concerted effort has ever been
made in any school to teach children generally to become
human beings. It is time we commenced to do so. We must
bring about a revolution in our educational system, a peaceful
revolution in the interests of peaceful and humane living. I
suggest that this revolution can best be brought about by the
educators themselves. It is the educators of our young who
are the true unacknowledged legislators of the world. It is
they who produce in the average adult the trained incapacity
for humane living, and it is they who are capable of making
truly humane citizens of the world. The opportunity beckons
to them to bring into existence, by their teaching, a new world
of humanity. Surely it is unnecessary for our educators to
wait until they are forced into action by the pressure of public
opinion. Surely it is the task of our educators to create the
public of the future, rather than to have the public of the past
create the educators of the future. It has been calculated that
it costs $125,000 to kill a man in this war; we could make an
almost perfect human being for considerably less. Would it
not be worth trying?

How shall we try? What are the specifications in the blue-
print for action? What the educators must do is, I think, ob-
vious: they must become aware of their strategic advantage,

THE SOLUTION? 251

and they must, in cooperation, take it upon themselves to re-
organize the education of the young along the lines I have in-
dicated; to teach humanity first and to regard all other educa-
tion as subsidiary to this.

To assist in bringing this desirable end about, we others
must organize a league for the reform of education. Such a
league should at first be on a national scale, with offices in
every large city and a central headquarters in Washington.
Later on, its activities should be extended to an international
scale. There will be no difficulty about that. The details of
the program for action should be drawn up by the founders of
the league in democratic session. Every person living in the
United States and its possessions should be invited to become
a member. Properly organized, such a league can become an
enormous power for good. By its means could be secured what
we have thus far failed to secure: Peace on earth, goodwill
unto all men.

A very big step in this direction would be the organization
of the schools, the children, and the parents for the develop-
ment of mutual understanding between the members of vari-
ous groups such as that initiated at Springfield, Mass., in 1939.
The plan is described in the following appendix. Readers of
this book can make an immediate contribution toward se-
curing better ethnic relations by actively interesting their own
communities in such a plan.

Appendix A

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY-SCHOOL

PLAN IN EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY

AND COOPERATION

' 'RACISM" is A DISEASE. It is a malfunctioning of the mind which
endangers human relations, a disease due to the infection of the
mind by false ideas concerning the status of other groups of human
beings. In much the same way as organs become diseased as the
result of the action of germs, so minds become diseased as the re-
sult of the action of wrong ideas. In August, 1939, the National
Conference of Christians and Jews, having carefully studied the
disease, concluded that it was impossible to eradicate "race" preju-
dice by counter-propaganda. What, clearly, was required, was the
development of an immunity to the disease. Such immunity could,
it was felt, best be secured in a systematic manner by providing
children and adults with the necessary protective education. It
was suggested to the Conference that it induce the school system
of some representative community to develop educational means
for immunizing children and adults against "racism."

In October, 1939, the Conference proposed to Dr. John Granrud,
Superintendent of Schools in Springfield, Mass., that his school
system should be the first to try the experiment. With great fore-
sight and sympathetic understanding Dr. Granrud immediately
accepted this suggestion and appointed a committee of nine, rep-
resenting all educational levels in the school system, including
supervisors, principals, and classroom teachers, to study the prob-
lems involved in organizing the program. A thorough study, last-
ing some six months, of the problems involved, led the committee
to the following conclusions:

1. Many of the prejudices, biases, and undemocratic attitudes
evident among the children are reflections of forces and factors
outside the school, such as the home, the street, the club, and some-
times even the church. The program for democracy should not,
therefore, be designed solely for the children in the schools, but
should reach the parents and the adult world which condition
the child's environment and thinking.

2. One of the major weaknesses of the previous attempts to in-
culcate democratic ideas is the fact that the teaching has been too
idealized. Youngsters were given to understand that we in this

254 SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY SCHOOL

country had already achieved a perfect democracy. This teaching
and idealization did not coincide with the realities of the young-
sters' experiences. They soon became disillusioned, because their
own observations invalidated the idealizations. Children were
taught, for example, that this is a land of equal opportunity and
that in this country people are not discriminated against because
of race, religion, or creed. But the Negro girl knew very well that
even though she was an excellent stenographer there was little
possibility of securing a position as a stenographer; and the boy
with a foreign-sounding name knew that his chances for securing
a good position were not so good as those of his classmates who
had the right kind of American name. The committee decided,
therefore, that issues should be faced squarely; that, while a posi-
tive and affirmative position on democratic ideals would be taken,
it should be emphasized that we had not yet achieved the perfect
democracy which is our goal; that the weaknesses in our democratic
processes should be pointed out, and that how these weaknesses
could be corrected and how our democratic processes could be
strengthened should be discussed realistically.

3. In order to eradicate blind and intolerant attitudes it is
imperative that pupils understand all the constituent elements
of our population, the historical backgrounds of these elements,
and their contributions to American life.

4. Finally, it is essential that democratic ideals be presented to
students in a dynamic fashion calculated to fire their enthusiasm
and to inspire their devotion to democracy as the best means of
achieving the good life for all our people. 1

Here, then, were some practical aids by which to frame the
program. The program was, from the outset, based on the assump-
tion that "race" prejudice can be prevented and that mass phobias,
manias, and hysterias infectious diseases of the mind can be
controlled as infectious diseases of the body have been controlled.

The method followed is much the same as that followed in the
control of any disease. The plan is to apply the same scientific-
humane principles which in a lifetime have all but conquered
smallpox and typhoid, which since 1900 have reduced the deaths
from tuberculosis from 200 per 100,000 to less than 40. Once the
germ has been isolated, a mass education campaign teaches not
only the terrible cost of the plague but also the breeding places of
the germs and the scientific way of eliminating them.

Various tests were applied to the children in the Springfield
public schools in order to determine the distribution of the breed-

i Halligan, "A Community's Total War against Prejudice," /. Educ. Social.,
XVI (1943), 374-So.

SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY SCHOOL 255

ing places of these germs, to determine the attitudes of the children
toward Jews, Negroes, the foreign-born, and various religious
groups. The tests revealed the fact that most of the prejudiced at-
titudes of children come from parents or other adults and from
adult institutions. Special emphasis has therefore been placed on
reaching the grown-ups.

Before the program was put into operation the children were
also given a number of objective-type tests, especially constructed
for the purpose, for "open-mindedness," "ability to distinguish
between fact and opinion," "ability to analyze conflicting state-
ments," "critical evaluation," and "support of generalizations/'
The data thus obtained was helpful in formulating the unit study
in public opinion and how it is influenced, drawn up under the
expert guidance of Dr. Clyde R. Miller, Associate Professor of
Education at Teachers College, Columbia University; it also pro-
vided a basis by means of which the progress of the children could
be measured. Following the public opinion unit study, the teachers
discuss with children and adults how public opinion is formed,
how to distinguish fact from opinion, what prejudices are, how
they are developed, and how to deal with them and avoid them.

The teaching and activities are adapted to every level in the
school system, and the emphasis throughout is upon cooperation,
upon doing things together, on living and learning together.

HOW THE PLAN IS SET UP

In order to carry out this program two directing bodies were set
up; one to function in the schools, called the Committee on Educa-
tion for Democracy. This committee is appointed by the Superin-
tendent of Schools and is representative of all educational levels
in the schools, including supervisors, principals, and classroom
teachers. The task of this committee is to study and advise on the
problems involved in the organization and functioning of the
program in the schools.

The other is a community committee for directing the com-
munity-wide program. It is broadly representative. Its member-
ship includes leading clergymen of various faiths, representatives
of different organizations in the business community, the pub-
lishers of the newspapers, labor leaders, representatives of the
social agencies, spokesmen of young people's organizations, the
wife of a Negro minister, leading figures in civic and club activities,
the Superintendent of Schools, and the Director of Adult Educa-
tion, who serves as secretary.

256 SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY SCHOOL

HOW THE PLAN FUNCTIONS

As the pupil advances through the school system, he is first given
in the elementary grades an understanding of "living and working
together," and he develops from the outset a comprehension of
some of the fundamental concepts of democracy. Each child is
encouraged to make his contribution to the group. He learns what
other peoples have contributed to our civilization, and he gets a
first sense of the interdependence of nations.

When he reaches the junior high school level, he is given an
opportunity to develop an appreciation of the rich heritage of
America. He is encouraged to build a sympathetic attitude toward
all racial and nationality groups through an understanding of
their cultural patterns. Specifically, he obtains knowledge of the
contributions of the various nationalities to the growth not only
of the United States but also of Springfield.

Senior high school students are provided with opportunities for
self-government; they analyze current problems, studying both the
strengths and the weaknesses of our democratic processes in order
to determine how the latter can be corrected and democracy
strengthened. They learn how to analyze and evaluate their own
prejudices and biases and how to reach conclusions objectively.

Tests given at the end of each year have shown substantial
progress at all levels in the school system.

ADULT EDUCATION

The community sponsors free public forums in school buildings
and has introduced controversial subjects, competent authorities
taking opposing positions. A film forum series covers many topics,
including the problems of "racial," religious, and economic groups.
The discussions following the films are led by experts and are
focused on local problems. Average attendance of public forums
is 1,000. A series of ten "film forums" drew an average attendance
of 800.

The New England type of "town meeting" was revived when
nonpartisan political meetings were sponsored in public school
buildings in each of the wards. Opposing candidates speak from
the same platform. People who haven't been in a school building
for years renew their contact with the school system. One political
rally drew an audience of 5,000.

SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY SCHOOL 257

OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL

In cooperation with the Council of Social Agencies an investiga-
tion of the conditions of domestic workers employed in private
homes was undertaken and standards for fair working conditions
in household employment were established. Representatives of
all the major women's clubs in the city subscribed to these stand-
ards. In cooperation with the Council an investigation of the
social and economic conditions of the Negro population in Spring-
field has been undertaken, with a view to improving those condi-
tions. Through the School Placement Bureau slow but steady
progress has been made in breaking down discrimination
in employment. Training of Negroes for skilled occupations has
been developed, and there are now three Negro teachers in the
school system of Springfield, all appointments being made strictly
on the basis of merit.

THOSE WHO LEAD ALSO LEARN

Special training courses for teachers and community leaders are
given at Springfield College, with emphasis upon contemporary
problems and the new tasks they impose on education.

Through newspapers, radio, meetings of all sorts, or civic groups,
and through study courses given in parent-teacher meetings, the
work is carried to the entire community.

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

Springfield, with a population of 150,000, is an average Ameri-
can city. About 40 percent of the residents are of old Yankee stock,
and the rest are largely of Russian, Polish, Greek, Italian, Irish,
and French-Canadian extraction, with the usual Jewish and Negro
minority groups. Some 60 percent are Roman Catholic.

At the time the plan was put into operation "conflicts and ten-
sions in Springfield were typical of those in other communities,
Coughlinites were fairly strong. Anti-Semitism was fairly pro-
nounced. Opportunities for Negroes were probably fewer than
in most similar communities/' 2

Furthermore, Springfield is a rather conservative community
and had to be introduced gradually to the changes in the system.
Nevertheless, Springfield had several advantages. It enjoyed two
exceptionally fine civic-spirited newspapers. Its school system was
known for its excellence, and its superintendent, Dr. Granrud, fol-

2 Miller, "Community Wages Total War on Prejudice," The Nation's
Schools, XXXIII (1944), 16-18.

258 SPRINGFIELD COMMUNITY SCHOOL

lowed a course of practical democracy in appointing teachers. The
school personnel was therefore representative of all groups, and
the people had confidence in their schools.

The community has cooperated with the schools in Springfield
to make the program a success. In this instance it was the teachers
who led the community, but without the encouragement, by co-
operation, of the community the efforts of the schools could scarcely
have succeeded as well as they have.

The children have made very substantial progress in learning to
think critically, and a large proportion have made considerable
progress toward overcoming their prejudices as a result of the
self-analysis and open discussion conducted in class. Mutual un-
derstanding of one another has been brought to many adults
through the Adult Educational program. But Springfield is not
yet Utopia. "We have only made a start in the great task before
us," Dr. Granrud has said. "But I am profoundly convinced that
significant progress has already been achieved, and as our experi-
ence and skill grow, even greater advances will be made in develop-
ing the type of citizenry which will not only strive toward but
which will achieve greater promise implicit in the democratic
way."

The experiment in education for democracy which has been so
successfully initiated and tried in Springfield will, it is hoped, be
tried in hundreds of other communities throughout the United
States. Already the representatives of the school systems of a num-
ber of large cities have the Springfield Plan under study for adop-
tion in their own school systems. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, put the
plan into action in January, 1944.

Each community will, of course, adapt the plan to meet its own
peculiar conditions. Every community which has undertaken to
carry out the plan will willingly assist other communities to launch
it successfully in their own cities.

There can be little doubt that the Springfield Plan is the most
promising practical scheme thus far developed for the combating
of "race" prejudice and the education of Americans for a living
democracy. Neither law nor regulation can eliminate "racial" or
religious discrimination. Such prejudices must be prevented from
developing. To eradicate the infection, we must begin in the nurs-
eries, on the playgrounds, and in the schools. This Springfield has
done. Its example must be widely imitated, not alone in the United
States, but throughout the world wherever people of different
physical types or religious faiths meet. In this way man's most
dangerous myth, the fallacy of "race," can be overcome and rele-
gated to the refuse heap of man's past follies.

Appendix B

AN EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT DEALING
WITH THE RACES OF MANKIND

As A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION of the manner in which the
public may be educated towards a better understanding of ethnic
relations, may be cited the pioneering example of the Cranbrook
Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Under the supervision of its Director, Dr. Robert T. Hatt, the
Cranbrook Institute of Science has prepared an exhibit giving
visual presentation of the significant findings concerning ethnic
facts. The exhibit deals broadly with the Negroid, White, and
Mongoloid groups and their cultures. By dispelling myths and cor-
recting fallacies the purpose of the exhibit is to create better un-
derstanding among men.

A photo-mural replica has been prepared of twenty-two of the
exhibits suitable for display in museums, libraries, high schools,
intermediate schools, churches, clubs, factories, and in similar
places. In this form the exhibit consists of 34 panels, 48 inches
high, varying from 16 to 66 inches wide, ready for immediate hang-
ing or nailing.

The list of exhibits is as follows: (i) All Mankind Is One Family;
(2) Our World Shrinks; (3) What Is Race? (4) Early Concepts of
Race; (5) Physical Characters of Human Races; (6) Why Are There
Different Races? (7) No Race Is Mentally Superior; (8) No Race
Is Most Primitive; (9) Nationalities Are Not Races; (10) Culture
Is Not Inborn; (11) Art Forms Define Culture?, yet Transcend
Racial Bounds; (12) All Races Enrich Architecture; (13) Poetry
Is Universal; (14) The Foods we Cultivate Are a Gift from All
Peoples; (15) Our Inventions Have Come from Many Races; (16)
Love of War Is Taught; (17) Negroes as an Integral Part of Our
Culture; (18) Composition of the American Negro; (19) The Jews
Are Not a Race; (20) Who Are the Aryans? (21) Blood Groups; (22)
Let Us Live at Peace.

This excellent exhibit though intended for display to persons
of high school age and over, has been successfully utilized down
to the third grade level.

Exhibits of this kind should form a permanent part of the educa-

26o AN EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT

tional equipment of every school and museum in the land. They
should be utilized not only as the basis for special courses in the
school curriculum, but should be brought into the teaching of
such subjects as literature, geography, and history.

Appendix C

STATE LEGISLATION AGAINST MIXED
MARRIAGES IN THE UNITED STATES

AT THE PRESENT TIME some thirty states in the Union legally
forbid "interracial marriage." In almost all these states miscegena-
tion is a felony; in many, a crime. In the following table, based
upon the data supplied in Vernier's American Family Laws, Vol.
I, Section 44, 1931, and the 1938 Supplement, the statutes and
other relevant data on the books of these states are given in alpha-
betic order. Vernier's remarks upon the data listed in this table
provide a useful analysis. He writes:

''The state statutes prohibiting marriage because of race dif-
ferences more nearly follow discernible geographic lines than any
other type of marriage regulation. This fact is not surprising. The
chief basis of such legislation is doubtless the social problem raised
by the presence of minority racial groups, and by the existence
of a varying degree of race prejudice. In states where the racial
minority is large, the social problem and the prejudice are apt to
be of proportionate importance. Other factors, such as the social
and economic history and development of a state, also exert a
definite influence in creating racial prejudice and discrimination,
one logical result of which is legislation prohibiting miscegena-
tion.

"A glance at the present statutory situation will reveal rather
definite geographic lines of legislation. Of the thirty states which
prohibit interracial marriages, sixteen may be designated as South-
ern or 'border' states, where the negro problem is, generally speak-
ing, most serious, owing to the presence of negroes in large num-
bers. Only one New England or North Atlantic state, Delaware,
has such legislation and, with the exception of Indiana, all the
other states prohibiting such marriages are west of the Mississippi.
Their statutes are not explained by the presence of any considera-
ble number of negroes or of any social or economic problems re-
sulting therefrom. But racial prejudice, social or ethnological con-
siderations, or the dogma of white superiority, have resulted in the
prohibition of inter-racial marriages.

"The states west of the Mississippi, and especially those on the
Pacific slope, are almost the sole authors of legislation prohibiting
the intermarriage of white persons with those of the Mongolian

262 LAWS AGAINST MIXED MARRIAGES

race. The only states east of the Mississippi, having such legisla-
tion are Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia. In the case of the Far
Western states in particular, the legislation is motivated by the
presence of Mongolians in sufficiently large number to interfere
seriously with the social and economic structure, as well as by a
seemingly inherent prejudice against, and a vigorous opposition to
their intermarriage with whites. In the states of the Middle West,
South, and East the problem is practically non-existent and it is
therefore easy to understand why intermarriage is not prohibited.

"The peculiarly geographic distribution of statutes prohibiting
racial intermarriage forces one to conclude (all logical justification
to the contrary, notwithstanding) that such legislation is not based
primarily upon physiological, psychological, or other scientific
bases, but is for the most part the product of local prejudice and
of local effort to protect the social and economic standards of the
white race." x

That such laws contravene the provisions of Article i, Section
10, of the Constitution 2 and the provisions of the Fourteenth
Amendment 3 is a fact which has not prevented the state courts
from upholding those laws. The Supreme Court has never handed
down a decision relating to them. 4

1 Vernier, American Family Laws, Vol. I, Section 44, pp. 204-9; 1938 Supple-
ment, pp. 24-25.

2 "No State shall . . pass any Law impairing the obligation of Contracts."
a "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the

jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein
they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges- or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws."

* For a discussion of this subject see Wittenberg, "Miscegenation," in En-
cyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, V, 531-34.

LAWS AGAINST MIXED MARRIAGES

363

State and Citation
ALABAMA

Const., sec. 102;
C. 1923, sees.
5001-2

ARIZONA

R.C. 1928, sec.
2166; amd. Sess.
L. 1931, Ch. 17,
p. 27

ARKANSAS

CALIFORNIA

Ragland, C.C.
1929, sees. 60, 69;
C.C. 1937; Lake,
sec. 60

COLORADO

Comp. L. 1921;
G.S., sec. 5548

DELAWARE

R.C. L. 1915, sec.
2992; amd. by
Sess. L. 1921, p.
578

FLORIDA

Const., art. 16,
sec. 24; R.G.S.
1920, sees. 3938-
41, 3944, 54*9-

PROHIBITED MARRIAGES

Ethnic Groups
Prohibited from
Marrying Whites

Status of such
Marriages

"Negro or descendant Each party guilty of
of a negro to the third a felony (Const.)
generation inclusive,
though one ancestor
of each generation was
a white person"

"Negroes, Mongoli- "Null and void"
ans, Indians, Hindus,
or members of the
Malay race"

"Negroes and Mulat- "Illegal and void"
toes"

"Negroes, Mongoli- "Illegal and void"
ans, Mulattoes, or
members of the Malay
race"

"Negroes or Mulat- "Absolutely void"
toes"

"Negro or Mulatto." "Void"

"Any negro" (person "Utterly null and
having one-eighth or void"
more of negro blood)

264

LAWS AGAINST MIXED MARRIAGES

State and Citation
GEORGIA

C. 1926, C.C., sec.
2941; Supp. 1930,
sees. 2177-2177
(20)

IDAHO

Comp. St. 1919,

sec. 4596, amd.

by Sess. L. 1921,
P- 291

INDIANA

Burns, Ann. St.
1926, sees. 2880,
9862, 9863

KENTUCKY

Carroll, St. 1922,
sees. 2097, 2144

LOUISIANA

C.C., sees, 94-95;
1926 Supp. to
Marr, Ann. R.S.,
pp. 396, 1102

MARYLAND

Bagby, Ann. C.
1924, art. 27, sees.

Ethnic Groups
Prohibited from
Marrying Whites

"Persons of African
descent"; "All ne-
groes, mulattoes, mes-
tizos, and their de-
scendants, having any
ascertainable trace of
either negro or Afri-
can, West Indian or
Asiatic Indian, blood
in their veins"; Mon-
golians l

"Mongolians, negroes,
or Mulattoes"

"Persons having one-
eighth or more of
negro blood"

"Negro or Mulatto"

"Persons of color"; in-
termarriage of Indians
and blacks prohibited

"Negro, or person of
Negro descent to the
third generation in-

Status of such
Marriages

"Null and void";
"utterly void"

"Illegal and void"

"Absolutely void
without any legal
proceedings"

"Prohibited and de-
clared void"

Have "no effect"
and are "null and
void"

"Void and a felony"

i In 1927 C. 1926, Supp. 1930, sees., 2177-2177 (20) Georgia enacted an elab-
orate statute for the regulation of miscegenetic marriages, the registration of
persons of color, issuance of licences to them, etc. This statute forbids the
marriage of a white person to anyone but a white person, and defines a
"white person"' as including "only persons of the white or Caucasian race who
have no ascertainable trace of either negro, African, West Indian, Asiatic
Indian, Mongolian, Japanese, or Chinese blood in their veins."

LAWS AGAINST MIXED MARRIAGES

265

State and Citation

Ethnic Groups
Prohibited from
Marrying Whites

358, 365 1 amd. L. elusive, or a member
1935, ch. 60, p. of the Malay race"
101

MISSISSIPPI

Const., sec. 263;
C. 1930, sees,
1103, 2361

MISSOURI

R.S. 1929, sees.

2974*

MONTANA

R.C. 1921, sees.
5700-5702

NEBRASKA

Comp. St.
sec. 1491

1922,

NEVADA

Comp. L. 1929,
sees. 10197-98

NORTH CAROLINA

Const., art. XIV.
sec. 8; Consol. St.
1919, sees. 2495,
4340

NORTH DAKOTA

Comp. L. 1913,
sees. 9582-83,
9586

"Negro or mulatto or
Mongolian," or per-
son having one-eighth
or more of negro or
Mongolian blood

"Persons having one-
eighth part or more
negro blood"; "Mon-
golian"

"Negro or a person of
negro blood or in part
negro"; "Chinese per-
son"; "Japanese per-
son"

"Person having one-
eighth or more negro,
Japanese or Chinese
blood"

"Any person of the
Ethiopian or black
race, Malay or brown
race, or Mongolian or
yellow race"

"Negro or Indian";
"or person of negro or
Indian descent to the
third generation in-
clusive"

"Negro" (persons hav-
ing one-eighth or
more of Negro blood)

Status of such
Marriages

"Unlawful
void"

and

"Prohibited and de-
clared absolutely
void"

"Utterly null and
void"

"Void"

"Unlawful and a
gross misdemean-
our"

"Void"

"Utterly null and
void"

266

LAWS AGAINST MIXED MARRIAGES

State and Citation
OKLAHOMA

Comp. St. 1921,
sees. 7499-7 500

OREGON

C. 1930, sees. 6
(902), 14(840), 14
(840' 33 ( 1Q 2)

SOUTH CAROLINA

Const. Art. Ill,
sec. 33; C. 1922,
Dr. L., sec. 378;
C.C., sec. 5536

SOUTH DAKOTA

Comp. L. 1929,
sees. 128-30

TENNESSEE

Const., art XI,
sec. 14; 'Thomp-
son, Shannon's
C. 1917* sees.
4186-87

TEXAS

Baldwin, Com-
plete St. 1925,
C.C., sec. 4607;
P.C., sees. 492-94

UTAH

Comp. L. 1927,
sec. 2967

VIRGINIA

C. 1930, sees.
4540, 4546, 5087,

Ethnic Groups
Prohibited from
Marrying Whites

"Any person of Afri-
can descent"

"Any negro, Chinese,
or any person having
one-fourth or more ne-
gro, Chinese, or Kan-
aka blood, or more
than one-half Indian
blood"

"An Indian, or ne-
gro," or any Mulatto,
mestizo, or half-breed

"Any person belong-
ing to the African, Co-
rean, Malayan, or
Mongolian race"

"Africans or the de-
scendants of Africans"
to the third genera-
tion inclusive"

Status of such
Marriages

"Unlawful and pro-
hibited"

"Absolutely
and void"

null

"Utterly null and
void and of no ef-
fect"

"Declared to be
null and void from
the beginning"

"Null and void"

"Negro
lian"

or Mongo- "Null and void"

"Negro or Mongo-
lian"

"Colored persons";
having other than
Caucasian blood in
more than the six-
teenth degree

"Prohibited and
declared void"

"Absolutely void
without any decree
of divorce or other
legal process"

LAWS AGAINST MIXED MARRIAGES

267

State and Citation
WEST VIRGINIA

Barnes, Ann. C.
1923, ch. 64, sec.
i; ch. 149, sec. 8

WYOMING

Ethnic Groups
Prohibited from
Marrying Whites

"Negro"

Status of such
Marriages

"Void from the
time they are so de-
clared by a decree
of divorce or nul-
lity"

"Negroes, mulattoes, "Illegal and void"

Comp. St. 1920, Mongolians, or Ma-

secs. 4972-73

lays"

Appendix D

A FILM STRIP ON RACE

A VALUABLE AID in teaching and in leading discussion groups, suit-
able for audiences of almost every kind, is a 35 mm. film strip
entitled "We Are All Brothers; What Do You Know about Race?"
This film strip is based on the pamphlet The Races of Mankind
by Dr. Ruth Benedict and Dr. Gene Weltfish and is obtainable
from New York University Film Library, Washington Square
South, New York 12, N.Y., for $1.15, postpaid.

The film strip consists of 60 frames which can be shown on any
35 mm. single frame silent film strip projector. Showing the film
usually requires about thirty minutes. This includes an excellent
commentary, which is supplied without additional charge to-
gether with directions for the use of the film.

Produced by New Tools for Learning (New York), in coopera-
tion with the Public Affairs Committee, Inc., and New York Uni-
versity Film Library, "We Are All Brothers" contains neither new
nor startling material, but builds on the generally known common
things. Its aim is to give new perspective where powers of observa-
tion have been blunted by prejudice and ignorance, and it is
designed to stimulate discussion and bring out questions.

This film strip, which it is to be hoped is but the forerunner
of many others, is already being widely used in schools and discus-
sion groups, with considerable success.

There is great need for full-length films dealing with the many
and varied aspects of "race" along the lines of Pare Lorentz's "The
River" and "The Plough That Broke the Plains."

A somewhat longer film strip, "Forward All Together," written
and produced by William arid Dorothea Gary, with accompany-
ing speech notes, is obtainable from The Council against Intol-
erance in America, 17 East 4sd Street, New York 17, N.Y., for
$2.50, postpaid.

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Index

Aberdeen University, Rectorial Ad-
dress, 158

Aboriginal-white crosses, noff.

Achievement, diversity the true basis
of collective, 96

Adachi, Buntaro, 212

Adult education for democracy and
cooperation, 256

Africa, one of probable birthplaces of
ancestors of man, 50; kingdoms, 151

Aggressiveness, ix; race prejudice a
means of releasing, 83, 247; can be
directed towards fellowship and mu-
tual aid, 84 f.; generated in child-
hood, 90; society must provide out-
lets, 93

Agricultural stage of development,
war came into being only after, 173

Alabama capitalists keep race hate
alive, 82*1

Albinos, pigmentless tissues, 50

Allee, W. C., quoted, 175, 176

Altruism, spirit of, more natural to
man than antagonism, 175

Amaxosa, size of brain, 59, 199

America, see United States

American colonial stock, disappear-
ance of, 100; a mixed lot, 101

American Dilemma . . . An (Myr-
dal) 2on

American Family Laws (Vernier), 261

American temperament or psychology,

239

Animal geneticists, hybrids produced
by, 105

Animals, biologists create new sub-
races among lower, 4; physical dif-
ferences in geographical and genetic
races, 5; basic processes in evolution
of all forms, 39; color of hair, 47,
49; of skin, 50; no group static and
immutable, 75; hybrids, 128; killing
neither necessary nor natural, 166;
fear not instinctive, 168; will not
war upon own species, 171; see also
Apes; Dogs

domesticated: production of from

wild types, 42; selected strains de-
veloped, 47; means by which bio-
logical changes are produced, 74;
see also Dogs

Antagonism, modern group, 9; "natu-
ral antagonisms," 174

Anthropologists, need to deal frankly
with traditional concept of race, xii;
failure to classify human groups, 4,
31, 46; inversion of genetic approach
to problem of varieties of mankind,
12; attention to problems of racial
divergence and distribution, 21;
older school not clear as to meaning
of term "race," 26; how confusion
upon subject has come about, 27-
36; approach to study of relation-
ships, 32; must recognize changes in
treatment of racial classification, 36

Anti-poll-tax bill, South's fight to de-
feat, 82n

Apes, 163, color of skin, 3911, 50; physi-
cal characters of anthropoid, com-
pared with those of Negro, 52; jaw,
200

Archaic white or Australoid stock or
division of mankind, 5

Aristotle, 187; conception of species,
28; on Nature, 161

Aryans, 7, 79; all not so-called de-
prived of civil rights, 237

Asdell, S. A., quoted, 14371

Ashkcnazim, 222

Asia, eastern: probable birthplace of
ancestors of man, 50

Ass, 106

Australian aboriginal, 152, 179

Australian-white crosses, 111-14

Australoid stock, see Archaic white

Babylonian Empire, 151

Bacon, Francis, 164

Barnes, I., 207

Bastaards, hybrid vigor, 126; hair, 209

Bean, R. Bennett, 197

Behavior, motives involved, 134

Benedict, Ruth, xii; and Gene Welt-
fish, 10972, 140; film strip based on
pamphlet of, 268

Bergson, Henri, 160

Bernhardi, F. A. J. von, 178; protest
against aspirations for peace, 156;
"biologically just decision" of war,
*57 ! 59l on Nature, 160

Biological justification of war, 157 ff.

INDEX

Biological urges culturally controlled,
148

Biologists urge that term "race" be
dropped, 68

Biology, facts of, 46-61; no justifica-
tion for use of old concept of race
in field of, 73; biological develop-
ment influenced by social factors,
74-88

Birth rate, effect of inbreeding on,
100, 103

Black stock, 5; see also Negroes

Blood, and "race," 180-91; role of con-
cept of in Western culture, 181; and
social status, 184; not a transmit-
ter of hereditary characters, 186;
groups, 188; of all human beings
identical, 188; of Negroes segregated
for purposes of blood transfusion,

189

Blood group genes, mutation of, 34;
distributions, 43

"Blood-relationship," term, 185

"Blood royal," term, 183

"Blue-blood," term, 183

Blumenbach, J. F., 28, 4471; on essen-
tial unity of mankind, 12, 15;
quoted, 215

Boas, Franz, xii, 77, 115; quoted, 137,
i53> 234

Body odor, 211 ff.

Bonger, W. A., quoted, 24

Bougainville, L. A. de, 18

Boyd, William, xiv

Brain, size as related to mental capac-
ity, 54, 59; coordinates nervous ac-
tivities according to educative pat-
tern offered, 55; culture organizes,
59; of Negro, 194, 199; no racial or
inferiority signs in human, 198; size
and weight have little to do with
functional capacities, 199

Brazil, Negro-white crosses, 127

Breeding, selective, as understood by
eugenists, 144; see also Animals, do-
mesticated; Eugenics; Heredity; Hy-
bridization; Inbreeding; Outbreed-
ing; Race mixture

Britons, cultural development at time
of Roman conquest, 58, 150; con-
tacts with peoples of Europe, 152

Brown, W. O., quoted, 99

Bryce, James, quoted, i, 8; on self-
conscious racial feeling, 8; on exag-

geration of racial variety and na-
tional pretentions, 25

Buffon, G. L. L., used term "race" in
general sense, 18; term "race" taken
over from, 18, 20, 28

Bulldog, 125

Buxton, I. H. D., quoted, 42*1

Caldecott, quoted, 244

Caldwell, W. E., and H. C. Moloy,
206

California, race prejudice, 79, 85;
factors involved, 86

Cancer of the skin reduced by hy-
bridization, 112

Carmelites, see Neanderthal man

Caste, and race, 67 ff., 75; defined, 68;
problem entirely a social one, 73

Castle, W. E., 119; quoted, 101, 120,

'25, 133

Cats, 47; see also Animals, domes-
ticated

Cattalo, 129

Caucasoid or white stock or division
of mankind, 5

Cephalic index variable among Jews,'
224, 225; percentage distribution,
226

Chamberlain, H. S., 76, 170

Characteristics, human-genetic basis
of few known, 34; inheritance of
separate traits, not complexes, had
to be studied, 41

Characters, metrical and nonmetrical
relating to varieties of man, 37; new
genetic combinations, 39; of adap-
tive value, 51

Children, emotionally conditioned to
belief in "race" differences, 64; must
be taught facts which anthropology
has made available, 66; rating of
Negro, in Los Angeles schools,
logn; aboriginal, compared with
European, 113; should be given
sympathetic understanding of dif-
ferent ethnic groups and cultures,
140; education for democracy ' and
cooperation, 253-58; teaching too
idealized, 253; soon disillusioned,
254; tests to determine attitudes of,
toward various ethnic and reli-
gious groups, 255

Chimpanzee, 52

Chinese, prejudice against, 79

INDEX

293

Chinese-white crosses, 127!!.

Christians, persecution in pagan
Rome, 81

Cipriani, Lidio, quoted, 196

Civilization, war an artificial product
of, 172; conditions peculiar to in-
dustrial, 174, man's inhuman tend-
ency to exploit his fellow man, 178

Clark, E., and R. H. Lhamon, 214

Classes, biology and stratification
patrilineally determined, 69

Classification of races, 3; failure of
anthropological attempts at, 4, 31,
46; Blumenbach's attempt, 12; at-
tempts to base on morphological
characters misleading, 13; Buffon's,
18; morphological characters which
anthropologists have relied upon,
35; changes in treatment, 36; sys-
tems are fictional devices, 164

Class prejudice, 69

Cobb, W. M., 202, 205

Colonial stock, see American colonial
stock

Colored peoples, discrimination in
America against, 7; see also Race
prejudice; and under names of col-
ored peoples, eg., Negroes

Communists, help given to backward
races, Son; see also Russia

Complexes of characteristics, inherit-
ance of, 41

Conklin, E. G., xii; quoted, 94, 135,
180

Consanguinity, 42*1; term, 185

Constitution, state laws that contra-
vene, 262

Cook, Captain, 18

Cook, Cecil, quoted, 112

Coon, C. S., new races and sub-races
created by, 3

Cooperation, beginnings, 173; more
natural than antagonism, 175; role
in evolution, 175 ff.; the great prin-
cipal of biological and social devel-
opment, 247; need to make the
principal purpose of education,
248; Springfield community-school
plan in education for democracy
and, 253-58

Cranbrook Institute of Science, 259

Cranial sutures in Negroes and
whites, 195, 199

Crockett, Charis, quoted, 30

Crossbreeding, see Hybridization;
Outbreeding; Race mixture

Cross-cousin marriage, 42n

Crusade, First: massacre of Jews, 222

Cuba, Negro- white crosses, 127

Cultural variables, play part in pro-
ducing mental differences between
groups, 57 ff.; part in production of
what is predicated, 148

Culture, differences fundamentally of
a social nature, 137 f.; cultural
achievement, 137, 147; and "race,"
1 4^-55; a function of experience,
146, 147; cultural relativity, 150;
condition for production of cultural
change, 151; determined by acci-
dental factors, 153; man's ability to
improve upon normal processes of
Nature, 167

Cuvier, Georges, quoted, 14; concep-
tion of unity of type, 28

Dachshund, 125

Danforth, C. H., 210

Darwin, Charles, loan, 176; concep-
tion of species, 13, 29; quoted, 10471

Davenport, C. B., 207, 209; quoted,
118, i2on

Davenport, C. B., and M. Steggerda,
41, 117, 119, 120, 207, 209

Day, Caroline B., 202, 203, 209, 211

Decency, fairness toward others a
matter of, 93

Declaration of Independence, 242;
first principle, 243

Defectives, problem can be attacked
by social means alone, 145; cross-
breeding will decrease incidence of,

145

Degeneracies do not occur in hybrids,
128

De generis humani varietate (Blu-
menbach), excerpt, 12

Delaware, tri-hybrid Moors and Nan-
ticokes, 117

Democracy, race and, 236-43; our op-
portunity to extend to limits of
earth, 238; fundamental principle
of American, 242; must balance in-
terests of component groups, 243;
teaching about, too idealized, 253;
Springfield community-school plan
in education for, 253-58

294

INDEX

Disaster, repair of, an outlet for ag-
gression, 85

Diseases brought under control, 141;
infectious, of the mind can be con-
trolled, 254

Disharmonies rare in hybrids, 128

Diversity, true basis of collective
achievement, 96

"Divide and rule," 87

Divisions of mankind, see Mankind

Dixon, Governor, race hate kept alive
by, 82n

Dobzhansky, Theodosius, xiv; quoted,
33,41,43, 144, 182, 186

Dogs, bred for temperamental qual-
ities, 47; no mental differences be-
tween different color varieties of
a breed, 47, 48; hybridization
among, 121; crossing of defective
stock with normal, 125; see also
Animals, domesticated

Dollard, John, 85, 215; quoted, 211,
216

Domestication, 74

Domestic workers, investigation of
conditions of, 257

Donkey, 106

Dutch-Hottentot mixture, 126; hair,
209

Ecologists needed, 78

Economic conditions utilizable for
good or evil, 85

Economic factor and factor of social
stratification, 78 88, fate of those
denied effective participation in
process, 78

Economic rivalry most potent cause
of war, 174

Economic system a basic cause of rac-
ism, 87

Edinger, Ludwig, quoted, 56

Education, processes can do little to
ameliorate state of world, ix: facts
made available by anthropology,
66; for humanity first, 96: dissocia-
tion between what is taught in
schools and by life, 246; need to
make cooperation principal pur-
pose, 248; no concerted effort to
teach children to become human
beings, 250; need to organize a
league for reform of, 251; Spring-

field plan for immunizing children
and adults against "racism," 253

Educational exhibit dealing with
races of mankind, 259 f.

Educators produce in average adult
the trained incapacity for human
living, 250

Ellis, Havelock, quoted, 173

Elton, Lord, quoted, 15771

Emotion, man a creature of, 244

End effects, conditions producing, 37

England, offspring of Negro-white
unions in seaports, 120

English, cultural development has
led away from music, 59; attitude
toward Negroes or Indians at home
and in Africa or India, 80

English-Tahitian crosses, 110

Environment, 162, 163; environmental
plasticity of mental characters, 58

Equality, concept of, in progressive
tradition, 97

Eskimos, brain size, 59, 199

Essai sur rindgalitd des races hu-
maines (Gobineau), 22

Ethnic groups, mixed, can never be
genetically purified into original
components, 3; not one pure, 5;
distribution of variations, 6; averag-
ing characters, 31; genetic drift or
inherent variability, 38; primary
factors responsible for physical dif-
ferences, 39; roles of primary and
secondary factors in producing
racial variability, 40; blood group
distribution, skin color, cephalic
index distribution, 43; defined, 43,
72; variability constitutes genetic
proof of mixed character, 46; no
process of mental selection opera-
tive to produce different types of
minds, 47; how new human variety
was produced, 48; few mental dif-
ferences, 56, 140; role of cultural
variables, 57 ff.; physical differences
do not reflect mental differences,
60; variation an ecological problem,
72. term "race" should be replaced
by, 72; interbreeding, 100; all be-
long to same species, 106; origin and
evolution of human, 108,* effects of
mixed, in Hawaii, 114-15; creative
power of mixture, 130, 132 .; no
argument on score of physical or

INDEX

295

biological structure, 137; mixture
does not lead to intellectual dete-
rioration, 138; utilization and inter-
change of differences, 155; unique
type, 192 (see also Negroes; Negroes,
American); in our democracy, 236;
no differences in innate or inherited
qualities, 239, 240; existence of,
proof that it possesses a majority of
desirable qualities, 240; result of
mixing, 242; state legislation against
mixed marriages in U. S., 261-67;
see also Mankind; "Race"

Eugenics, genetics and race, 134-45;
definition, 134; in service of class in-
terests, 135; in disrepute among sci-
entific students of genetics, 135,
should be a social science, 136;
heredity not sufficiently understood
for attempt to improve human
stock, 143

Eugenists, 134; fallacy committed by,

43

Europe shows us today where we may
end, 238

Evolution, materials of, discontin-
uous, 13; materials represented by
genes, 33; principal agencies in man,
34; basic processes in, of all animal
forms, 39; physical traits of Negro
from standpoint of, 52; sociological
and historical causes, 75; by muta-
tion, 103; and by hybridization,
103, 107; emergent, 105; in Nean-
derthaloid people, 107; how advance
in human, has been accomplished,
146; purpose a product of blind
forces, 165; role of cooperation,
175 ff.

Experience, culture a function of,
146; mental and cultural differences
accounted for on basis of, 150; new,
the chief determinant of cultural
change, 151

Eyes of Negro, 202; of Jews, 223, 225

Face, cast of, culturally determined,

231
Fairness in dealing with different

groups, 93, 94
Fears, emotional association between

aggressive feelings and, 91; acquired,

168 f.; nurtured by isolation, 169
Feeblemindedness, 136

Fertility, of human hybrids, 106, 114;

of plant and animal hybrids, H5f.
Fetuses, Negro and white, 200
Fighting, confusion of term with war,

166; among animal, not war, 171
Filipinos, prejudice against, 79
Film forums, 256
Film strip on race, 268
Finot, Jean, 22

Fischer, Eugen, 41, 126, 198, 209
Fisher, R. A., quoted, 75
Fleming, R. M., 120, 127
Food, taste in, culturally determined,

166
l-orce, confusion of term with war,

166

Forums, public, 256
Foundations of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury (Chamberlain), 170
Frequency distributions of physical

characters, 48; see also Genes
Frornm, Erich, quoted, 97
Frustration, and race prejudice, 26,

81, 83, 247; brings state of conflict,

9i
"Full-blood," meaning, 184

Galton, Francis, quoted, 134

Gates, Ruggles, 116

Genes, materials of evolution repre-
sented by, 33; distribution, 34-36,
44, 48, 129 (see also Genetic drift);
variability, 34, 39, 41; mutation, 38,
39, 40; result of injection of new,
into old stocks, 103; defective, char-
acters carried in recessive state, 132,
143; desirable characters carried in
dominant state, 132; hereditary
characters transmitted by, 147. 187;
variety, 187

Genetic drift or inherent variability,
38, 40. 4i

Genetics, genetical theory of "race,"
37-45; genetic systems of all living
things behave according to same
laws, 37; eugenics, and "race," 134-
45; eugenics in disrepute among
scientific students of, 135

Genitalia in Negroes and in whites,
215

Geniuses, of mixed ethnic ancestry,
131

Geography, need to humanize teach-
ing of, 65

2 9 6 INDEX

Georgia, statute for regulation of
miscegenetic marriages, 26371

German-Hottentot mixture, 126

Germans, belong to same race as other
people of Western Europe, 2; belief
that Aryan is master race, 7, 23; dis-
eased national egotism, 23; excel in
art of creating myths, 23 f.; mytho-
logical doctrines and practice of
race hygiene, 135; will-to-war, 157;
treatment of Jews, 237

Germany and the Next War (Bern-
hardi), excerpts, 156, 157

Gibbons, 171

Glaser, S., quoted, 214

Gloger's rule, 49

Gobineau, J. A. de, 21, 76

God, 160

Goddijn, W. A., 126

Goethe, 11

Goldstein, M. S., 116

Goodness, innate tendencies toward,

175

Gorder, L. van, 207

Gorilla, 52; hair color, 3971

Granrud, John, 253; appointment of
teachers, 257 f.; quoted, 258

Grant, Madison, 76, 124, 135; reac-
tionary racist views, 7; quoted, 7,

2271, IOO

Great War, see World War
Greece, ancient: caste and class dif-
ferences, 8; attempt to link this up
with biological factors, 9; civiliza-
tion the creation of a highly hy-
bridized people, 123
Group antagonism, modern, g
Groups, see Ethnic groups; Mankind;

"Race"
Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahr-

hunderts, 23
Gunther, Hans, 227

Haddon, A. C., 3, 71, 235

Haemophilia, gene for, 34

Hair, some forms due to mutation,
34; kinky, 38, 52; of apes, 52; of
Negroes and of white, 53; form
yields readily to influence of new
genes, 208; high frequency of red,
among Amorites, 220; color among
Jews, 224

"Half-blood," meaning, 184

Half-caste, 184; popular superstition

re, 100; anomalous and ambiguous
position; social status of children,
101 ; regarded as outcast, 109

Handy, E. S. C., 115

Hankins, F. H., quoted, 133

Hardenberg, Prince, 11

Harris, facob, 113

Hatt, Robert T., 259

Hawaii, ethnic mixture, 114-15

Head, differences in characters of, 3;
not constant, 4; of Negro, 194;
cranial sutures alleged to unite ear-
lier in Negroes than in other races,
195, 199; of Jews, 224, 225; percent-
age distribution of head shape of
Jews, 226

Heiser, Victor, 202

Herder, J. G. von, quoted, 11

Heredity, 5, 162; separate traits, not
complexes, have to be studied, 41;
range of inherited capacities in two
groups, 58; inherited disorders call
for sterilization, 136; why not safe
to meddle with, 143; blood has
nothing to do with, genes transmit
and determine characters, 186;
Mendelian blending inheritance in
mulattoes, 208

Herrick, C. J., quoted, 57

Herskovits, M. J., 41, 117, 204, 210

Helerosis, see Hybrid vigor

Hcterozygosis, 107

Hirschfeld, Magnus, quoted, 227

Hitler, Adolf, 76, 178, 236; spiritual
progenitors of Mein Kampf, 23;
provided Germans with an accept-
able Weltanschauung, 24

Hobbes, Thomas, quoted, 161

Hogben, Lancelot, 71; quoted, i

Homma, H., 214

Homo sapiens, 43, 72

Homozygosis, reestablished by in-
breeding, 107; more rapid in small
groups than in large, 107

Hooton, Earnest A., 203; quoted, 209

Horse, 47; mule the hybrid of a cross
between donkey or ass and, 106; see
also Animals, domesticated

Hostility, race prejudice outlet for, 81

Hottentot-white unions, 126; hair, 209

Hotz, H., 22

Household employment, standards
for fair working conditions estab-
lished, 257

INDEX

297

House Military Affairs Committee,

iogn, 14071
Hrdlicka, Ales', 101
Human species, see Ethnic groups;

Mankind; Race
Humboldt, Alexander von, quoted,

i5 43"

Humboldt, Wilhelm von, quoted, 15

Hunt, James. 2o

Huxley, Aldous, xi, xii, xv; Foreword,
ix

Huxley, Julian S., 71, 72, 138; quoted,
165

Huxley, Julian S., and A. C. Haddon,
235; quoted, 3

Huxley, T. H., 3071

Hybridization, 39; effect of interbreed-
ing of ethnic groups, 102; funda-
mental process of evolution, 102;
distortion of facts, 105; notion that
it results in sterility, 106; example
of evolution by, 107; production of
new human types through, 108;
human, proceeding at rapid rates,
108; under favorable social condi-
tions, 111; among dogs, 121; no
form of human, biologically unde-
sirable, 124, 132; disharmonies rare,
degeneracies do not occur, 128; in
mixed human populations, 131;
blossoming of new civilization due
to, 131; see also Hybrid vigor; Race
mixture

Hybrids, first generation, 106; treat-
ment at hands of whites, 109; long
lived, no; tri-hybrid Scminole In-
dians, 1 16; occasional assymetric
inheritance, 121; animal hybrids,
128; true, 130; see also Half-caste

Hybrid vigor, meaning, 104; in first
generation of hybrids, 106: in de-
scendants of Polynesian-white un-
ions, 110; the rule in aboriginal-
white crosses: reproductive and sur-
vival rates, 113; increase in stature
and fertility in plants and animals
characteristic of, ii5f.; among
South African hybrids, 126; an im-
portant feature of race crosses in
man, 130; "luxuriation" of hybrids,

Iberian peninsula, population of
complex descent, 123

Ideas, implementing right, with

power of their conviction, 246
Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte

der Menschheit (Herder), 11
Ignorance, most, is voluntary, ix
Inbreeding, 39, 42; advantages of out-
breeding and, compared, 103; tends
to stabilize type and to produce de-
crease in vigor, 107; danger, 144
Indeterminacy, principle of, 163
Indians, American: treated as mem-
bers of a specific caste, 68; why not
enslaved, 71; "race" prejudice
against, 79; Indian-white crosses,
115-17; brain size, 199

East: English attitude toward, 80

Individuals, traits utilized in genera-
tion of racial enmities, 89; none su-
perior by virtue of group affiliation,
95; the incompletely developed and
the developed personality, 95; dif-
ferences will always exist between,
147; differences have little to do
with race, 240
Inheritance, see Heredity
Intellect, see Mental qualities
Interbreeding, see Hybridization;

Race mixture
Intergeneric crosses, 106
Intermarriage, see Miscegenation
Interspecific crosses, 106
Irish setter, 47

Isolating factors, social and geo-
graphic, 44

Jacks, L. P., quoted, 172
Jamaicans, mixed-breed, 117; limb
proportion and stature, 118, 119;
hair, 209

James, Henry, quoted, 180
James, William, 170
Japanese, brain size, 59, 199
Japanese Americans, treated as mem-
bers of a specific caste, 68; prejudice
against, 79, 85; Californians refuse
to permit loyal citizens to return to
their homes, 86; fighting as Amer-
ican citizens and soldiers, 169; dec-
orations for bravery, 170
Jennings, H. S., 119, 120; quoted, 130
Jews, singled out for discrimination
and persecution, 9; children aware
that hostility toward, is socially
sanctioned, 64; in Union of South

INDEX

Jews (Continued)

Africa, 82; are they a "race"? 218;
behavioral traits, 218; a much
mixed group, 220; not character-
ized by a community of physical
characters, 221; Diaspora, 221; Yid-
dish language, 222; plundered and
massacred, 222; Ashkenazim and
Sephardirn, 222; physical chaiac-
ters: eyes, 223, 225; hair color: form
of head, 224; no Jewish physical
type, "race," or ethnic group, 226,
228, 235; nose, 227; quality of look-
ing Jewish, 228; quasi-national
character, 228, 229, 235; what makes
one a Jew, 229; necessity of aggres-
siveness forced upon, 232; gesticula-
tions, 232; brain power, 233; linked
with whatever is desirable to dis-
credit, 237; imposition of a purely
mythological dogma upon, 237

Jourdain, Monsieur, 161

Journal des Sgavans, 18

Kaffirs, brain size, 59, 199

Kahler, Eric, quoted, 146

Kant, 11, 178

Keegan, J. J., 198

Keith, Sir Arthur, 166, 174, 178; views
on nature of war and its relation to
race prejudice, 158; quoted, 159,
165; overstepped frontiers of his
own field, 159; on Nature, 160;
"race-prejudice," 168; war nature's
"pruning hook," 177

Kidd, Benjamin, 168

Killing of animals or plants not neces-
sary, 166

Kisar, island of: Mongoloid Indone-
sian native-white hybrids, 127

Klineberg, Otto, xii, 77, 213; quoted,

58

Krauss, William, 115
Kretschmer, Ernst, 131
Krogman, W. M., 117
Kropotkin, Prince, 175

Langmuir, Irving, quoted, 141
Law, all is determined by, 161
Lawrence, 213
Legislation against miscegenation in

U.S., 771, 135, 261-67
Leibnitz on nature of peoples, 17
Levin, G., 198
Lhamon, R. H., 214

Life expectation in modern times, 141

Limson, Marciano, 200

Lindala, Anna, 203, 206

Linnaeus, 28

Linton, Ralph, quoted, 14

Lips, of Negro, 52; of ape, 52

Locke, John, quoted, 161

Lorentz, Pare, 268

Lotsy, J. P., and W. A. Goddijn, 126

Low German-Hottentot mixture, 126

Lukin, E. I., 49

Luther, 24

"Luxuriation" of hybrids, 131

Lyon, D. W., 199

MacCrone, I. D., quoted, 92

Magdalenian Age, 174

Malafa, R., 205

Malinowski, Bronislaw, quoted, 174

Mall, F. P., 197

Man, Real and Ideal (Conklin), 180

Mankind, extreme types, 3; no satis-
factory classification devised, 4, 31,
46; four distinctive stocks or divi-
sions, 5; differences between divi-
sions and between ethnic groups
comprising them, 6; all probably
derived from same ancestral stock,
6, 46, 137; essential unity, 13,
16, 45, 49, 149, 154, 241; rela-
tive physical and mental qual-
ity, 15; voyages of discovery re-
vealed many new varieties, 18; ef-
forts to establish criteria by which
races might be defined, 30; genetical
theory of "race," 37-45; families or
groups dispersed by migration be-
come geographically isolated, 38;
secondary factors in production of
genetic variety, 39, 42; biological
facts, 46-61; human varieties prob-
ably differ only in distribution of
a small number of genes, 46; range
of variation in varieties, 47; mental
differences due to factors of a cul-
tural nature, 48; physical charac-
ters, 48: represent successful at-
tempts at adaptation to environ-
ment, 49; no evidence that any
people is mentally superior or in-
ferior, 60; develops through social
and physical environment, 62, 74;
no group is static and immutable,
75; one of greatest creative powers
in progress of, 133; methods of

INDEX

299

geneticists breeding laboratory can-
not be applied to, 143; generalized
urges, 148; differences accounted for
on basis of difference in experience,
150; from socio-biological stand-
point, 153; owes supremacy to un-
determined chance relations, 163;
confused morality of Western, 167;
in a position to control his own
evolution, 167; no evidence of war-
fare among extinct varieties, 172 f.;
tendency to exploit his fellow man,
174; divisions of, see Ethnic groups;
"Race"

Man on His Nature (Sherrington), 175

Maori-white unions, 111

Mathew, John, quoted, 113

May, Andrew J., distortion of facts,
109*1

Maya-Spanish crosses in Yucatan, 116

Mein Kanipf (Hitler), 23

Melanesia, 115

Mendel, G. J., 33, 41, 186

Mendelian laws, distribution of phys-
ical traits in crosses follow, 1 14

Mental qualities, no selection opera-
tive to produce different types, 47;
skin color not associated with, 47;
differences due to cultural factors,
48, 57, 150; relative, of all mankind,
54 if., 60, 138; interacting factors,
56; environmental plasticity, 58; at-
titudes of mind, 93-99; not associ-
ated with genes linked with any
physical character, 137; ethnic mix-
ture does not lead to deterioration,
138; intelligence a function of cul-
tural experience as well as of inher-
ent quality, 138; claim to biolog-
ically determined, of races is not
tenable, 234

Merton, Robert K., xii; quoted, 83

Mestizo population of Mexico, 116

Migration, 38; a factor in genetic va-
riety of mankind, 42

Mill, John Stuart, quoted, 149

Miller, Clyde R., 255

Mind, interacting factors, 56; atti-
tudes, 93-99 (see also Mental qual-
ities); ability to control, 178

Minority groups, few would hesitate
to use them to their own advantage,
247 f .

Miscegenation, Mississippi law against
printing matter in favor of, 771;

social barriers against, act as isolat-
ing factors, 44; evils attributed to,
100; state legislation against, in
U.S., 135, 261-67; geographic lines
of legislation prohibiting, 261, 262

Missing links, 14

Mississippi, discrimination against
Negroes, *jn

Mixed -breeds, see Hybrids

Mixed marriages, see Miscegenation

Moloy, H. C., 206

Mongolians, legislation prohibiting
intermarriage with, 261

Mongoloid stock or division of man-
kind, 5

Mongoloid-white crosses, 127; among
Russians, 2

Mongrelization, 122

Monkeys, skin color, 50

Montagu, Audrey, xiv

Moors of Delaware, 117

Moral and Intellectual Diversity of
Races, (Gobineau, tr. Hotz), 22

Morant, G. M., quoted, 36

Morphological characters and phy-
sique, attempts to base classification
on, misleading, 13

Motives, 134

Mulattoes, see under Negroes

Mule, an interspecific cross, 106, 129

Mussolini, Benito, quoted, 63

Mutation, gene, 34, 38; frequency un-
known, 40; physical differences be-
tween races represent end effects of
small gene mutations, 41; all, is
random, 163; see also Evolution;
Species; Variation

Myrdal, Gunnar, quoted, son

Nabours, R. K., quoted, 128

Nanticokes of Delaware, 117

National Conference of Christians
and Jews, 253

"Nationality and Race" (Keith), 159

"Natural antagonisms," 174

Natural selection, 145

Nature, 160 ff.; a composite of chance
relations, 162; a term without defi-
nite meaning, 164; war of, 165

Nature (periodical), excerpt, 26

Nazi ism, race theories, 6, 188; repre-
sent ludicrous and vicious mythol-
ogy, 24, 79; assuming form of a na-
tional religion, 25; monster let loose
upon the world, 236

goo

INDEX

Nazis, Weltanschauung, xiv

Neanderthal man, cranial capacity, 54;
evolution by hybridization, 107, 108

Negritoes, Philippine, 202

Negroes, hair, 38, 39, 52, 208; skin
color, 39, 49, 207, 208; effect of in-
termarriage with whites, 44; adapted
to meet intense sunlight, 49, 50, 51;
physical traits from evolutionary
standpoint, 52; lips, 52; nose, 53, 201;
Negro-white crosses, 117-27; classical
study of descendants of Hottentots
and whites, 126; qualities of the
mulatto, 129, 208; lower average in-
telligence not scientifically estab-
lished, 138; blood identical with
that of all other human beings,
190; anthropometric characters, 193;
brain, 194, 199; cranial sutures al-
leged to unite early, 195, 199: head,
200 ff.; skull: jaw, 200; entrenched
characters, 202, 208; eye, 202;
hands: length of limbs, 203 ff.; foot,
205; pelvis, 206; body odor, 211 ff.;
sweat glands, 214; genitalia, 215

American, 5; discrimination

against, 7; gene distribution, 44;
treated as members of a specific
caste, 68; original difference in
status one of caste, not of biology,
70; physical difference utilized as
argument to continue depressed so-
cial status, 71; social status in South
and North, -80; intelligence of white
and Negro children in Los Angeles
schools, iogn; developing new eth-
nic type, 117; increase in popula-
tion, 118; as biological type, 126,
217; intelligence tests, Negro and
white recruits, 139; segregation of
blood of, for purposes of transfu-
sion, 189; myths relating to physical
characters, 192-217; one of newest
varieties of mankind, 192; signifi-
cance of anthropometric differences,
194 ff,; head, 194; glabrousness, 210;
sweat glands, 214; mustn't matter,
234n; few would hesitate to exploit,
247 f.; investigation of social and
economic conditions of, in Spring-
field, 257

Jamaican, 117

Negroid or black stock or division of
mankind, 5

"Negro's Place in Nature, The"
(Hunt), 2orc

Nervous system, 55; interacting fac-
tors, 56

Neuman, A. A., xiv

New Deal, white and black in South
aided by, 82*1

New Tools for Learning, 268

New York University Film Library,
268

New Zealand, Maori-white unions, in

Nietzsche, F. W., 165

Noble savage, 1 1

Norfolk Island, hybrids, no

North Borneo, low birth rate of in-
land compared with coastal popula-
tions, 103

Nose, of Negro, 53, 201; and of white,
53; cartilage, 202; broad, an en-
trenched Negro character, 202; of
Jews, 227

Novalis, 11

Oakesmith, John, quoted, 23

Oceania, white-aboriginal hybridiza-
tion throughout, 115

Octoroons, one piece cartilage in nose,
202

Oklahoma, tri-hybrid Seminole In-
dians, 116

Ontario, Indian-white crosses in, 116

On the Natural Variety of Mankind
(Blumenbach), excerpt, 12

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 101, 135; re-
actionary racist views, 7

Outbreeding, 39, 42; advantages com-
pared with those of inbreeding, 103;
increases variability of type and
augments vigor, 107; recessives asso-
ciated with dominants remain unex-
pressed, 144; see also Hybridization

Overweight reduced in hybrid, 114

Passing of the Great Race, The
(Grant), excerpt, 22W

Patten, William, 175

Paul et Virginie (Saint Pierre), n

Peace, no instinct toward, in man, 178

Pekingese, 125

Penis of Negroes and of whites, 215

Personality, the incompletely devel-
oped and the developed, 95

Physical character, intergradation
and overlapping, 3; appearance ac-

INDEX

301

quired through action of inherited
genes, 147; differences purely ex-
ternal, 239; become basis for social
discrimination, 240
Pigmentation, see Skin color
Pitcairn Island hybrids, no, in
Pittsburgh, adoption of Springfield

Plan in school system, 258
Plant geneticists, hybrids produced

by, 105
Plants, physical differences found in

geographical and genetic races, 5
Plato, 161
"Plough That Broke the Plains, The"

(Lorentz), 268

Poles, treatment of Jews, 237
Poll-tax, South's fight against bill to

remove, 82*1
Politicians incite to riot and murder:

keep "race" issue alive, 87
Pollard, A. P., quoted, 161, 166
Polyhybridization, 131
Polynesians, brain size, 59, 199
Polynesian- white crosses, 110-11, 114-

15

Populations, 41, 43; problem of phys-
ical mobility, 72

Portugal, population of complex de-
scent, 122

Post, R. H., quoted, 210

Poynter, C. W. M., and J. J. Keegan,

198

Prejudice, early, difficult to eradicate,
66; no animal or human born with,
168; see also Race prejudice; Reli-
gious discrimination

Prichard, 4471

Principles of Political Economy (Mill),
excerpt, 149

Proletariat, struggle against emanci-
pation of, 22

Propaganda, 174

Psychological Examining in the
United States Army (Yerkes), 139

Psychological factors of "race" prob-
lem, 62, 89-99

Psychology, American, 239

Public Affairs Committee, Inc., 268

Public opinion, unit study in, 255

Purposes made, not found, 165

"Pure-blood," meaning, 184

Quota Act, Union of South Africa, 82

"Race," problem has assumed exag-
gerated importance, xi; origin of
concept, 1-26; in biological sense, 2,
6; term begs the question, 4; in the
genetic sense, 6; typical conception
of, the tragic myth of our tragic era,
8; biological concept of differences
a result of slave trade, 10; social
differences turned into biological
difference, 20; modern concept a
product of emotional reasoning, 25;
anthropological concept, 27-36; in-
troduction of term, 28; indictment
against anthropological concept of,
35; genetical theory, 37-45; funda-
mental postulates of concepts, 38;
roles of primary and secondary fac-
tors, 39; dynamic condition, 40;
fundamental units of variability,
41; re-defined, 42; and society, 62-
73; an event rather than a term,
62; methods of disseminating re-
sults of study of, 64 ff .; early preju-
dices re, difficult to eradicate, 66;
biological and social factors, 67, 74-
88; and caste, 67 ff., 75; term should
be dropped, 68, 71; meaninglessness
of older anthropological conception,
71; replacement of concept of, by
concept of ethnic group, 72 (see also
Ethnic groups); new races synthe-
sized rapidly, 75; methodological
aspect of problem, 76; sociologists
need understanding of physical and
mental development, 78; economic
factor and social stratification, 78-
88; psychological factors, 89-99; P sv "
chological factor overlooked, 93;
eugenics, genetics and, 134-45;
deterioration claimed without ben-
efit of knowledge of facts, 141;
deteriorative factors could be elim-
inated by improving social environ-
ment, 142; and culture, 146-55; and
war, 156-79; race sentiment a recent
development, 170, 172; race senti-
ment a recent acquisition of man,
170, 172; and blood, 180-91; concept
which equates inheritance with
transmission of characters through
blood, 189; and democracy, 236-43;
dangerous myth of, 241; educational
exhibit dealing with, 259 f.; film
strip on, 268

302

INDEX

Race mixture, "race omelette," 31-34;
creative power of, 100-33; popular
superstition re, 100; cross-breeding
of ethnic groups, 108; Polynesian-
white crosses, 110-11, 114-15; Aus-
tralian-white crosses, 111-14; ethnic
mixture in Hawaii, 114-15; ethnic
mixture between Indians and
whites, 115-17; Negro-white crosses,
117-27; Mongoloid -white crosses,
127; Chinese-white crosses, 127-33;
process in which creative power of,
shows itself, 130; blends of future,
133; eugenists believe should be
prevented, 136; crossbreeding may
decrease incidence of defectives, 145;
see also Hybridization; Miscegena-
tion

Race prejudice, in children, 64; can
be prevented, 67; and class preju-
dice, 69; nonexistent in classless so-
ciety of Soviet republics, 70, Son;
economic factor and social strati-
fication. 78-88; socially sanctioned
and directed, 81, 87; most people
exhibit evidence of, 89; aggressive-
ness expressed in, 91, 247; result of
deliberate education and cultiva-
tion, 94, 154, 168, 170, 171, 247; ef-
fect of an incompletely developed
personality, 95; solution, 96, 244-51;
process of rationalization, 98; origin
of, in U.S., 98; Keith's views on,
158 (see also Keith, A.); belief in
biological justification of war based
on, 158; expressed as national ri-
valries and jealousies, 168; a recent
acquisition of man, 170, 172; flaring
of latent enmities in times of eco-
nomic stress, 242; weapon with
which minorities have been beaten,
242; Springfield Plan most practical
scheme developed for combating,

8 5 8

"Race -prej udice -biological -nature- of -

war" school, 158
Races of Mankind, The (Benedict

and Weltfish), 10971, i4on
Race theory immoral, unnatural, and

irrational, 23; and assuming form

of a national religion, 25
"Racial" dogma, mythological, of

Nazi ism, 79
"Racial" interpretation a modern

"discovery," 8, 9

Racism, a vicious political doctrine,
xiv; a weapon of imperialistic poli-
tics, 17; doctrine of, implicit in
eugenic movement, 134; a disease
due to infection by false ideas,

253

Racist views, reactionary, 7

Ramahyuck, aboriginal school, 113

Ranson, S. W., quoted, 56

Red Cross segregation of blood of Ne-
groes for transfusion, 189

Regne animal, Le (Cuvier), 14

Rehoboth Bastaards of South Africa,
126; hair, 209

Religio Medici (Browne), 170

Religious discrimination, Springfield
plan for combating, 253-58

Renan, Ernest, quoted, 24

Reuter, Edward B., quoted, 88

Ride, L. T., quoted, 103

"River, The" (Lorentz), 268

Rodenwaldt, Ernst, 127

Roman conquest, 151, 152; effect of
cultural stimulation upon develop-
ment which followed, 59

Rome, attempt to link biological fac-
tors with idea of race superiority 9;
did better by its subject peoples
than Britain, 152

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 82 n

Roosevelt, Franklin D., aid of admin-
istration to white and black in
South, 82n

Rosenberg, Alfred, quoted, 188

Royal Anthropological Institute, 36

Russia, influence of Mongoloid ad-
mixture in population, 2; in class-
less society of Soviet republics,
"race" prejudice is nonexistent, 70;
management of ethnic group rela-
tions in Soviet Union, 80

Saint George or the Dragon (Elton),
excerpt, 15771

Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, u

Sanchez, Francesco, 246

Savages on whole not warlike, 173

Schools, work they can do in clarify-
ing facts re varieties of man, 65;
must teach facts which anthropol-
ogy has made available, 66; dissoci-
ation between what is taught in,
and by life, 246; see also Education

Schultz, A. H., 200, 204

INDEX

303

Scientists have done little to establish
facts about race, i

Selection, part in determination of
skin color, 39; natural, sexual, and
social, 39, 41, 42, 44

Self-interest, dominance of, brings so-
cial disorganization, 247

Seminole Indians of Oklahoma, tri-
hybrid, 116

Sephardim, 222

Servants, see Domestic workers

Shannon, A. H., quoted, 196

Shapiro, H. L., quoted, no

Shaw, G. Bernard, 160

Shelley, quoted, 40

Sherrington, Sir Charles, 175

Shufeldt, R. W., 212; quoted, 195

Sichel, 227

Singer, Charles, quoted, 160

Skin cancer reduced by hybridization,

112

Skin color, effect of mutation of genes,
34, 39; not associated with mental
capacity, 47; black a character of
adaptive value, 49; darkening of,
under sunlight, 50

Skull of Negroes and whites, 200

Slavery, stratified society based upon,
9; biological concept of race differ-
ences developed as result of, 10;
kept subject of race differences at
lively heat, 16, 19

Slaves, in high positions in Church
and State, 10; refutation of claim
that extinction of ancient stocks
followed absorption of alien, 122

Smith, Adam, 173

Smith, Sidney, 2371

Smuts, Jan Christiaan, 83

Snobbery, 241

Social barriers act as isolating factors,

44

Social class, biological character of, 9

Social conditions, biological develop-
ment influenced by, 74-88; form of
mind and of body dependent upon,
98; elimination of deteriorative fac-
tors by improvements in environ-
ment, 142; ills produced by socially
inadequate individuals, 142

Social problems, attack upon, an out-
let for aggressiveness, 85

Social sciences, confusion re subject of
race, 67

Social status determined by blood, 184

Social stratification and economic fac-
tor, 78-88

Social thoroughbreds, 135

Society, and "race," 62-73; m u st pro-
vide outlets for aggressiveness, 93;
responsibility for elimination of
race prejudice, 96; depends upon
ability of mind to control, 178

Sociologist, problem of caste of no bio-
logical relevance to, 73

South, race prejudice, 80, 81; people's
enemies have taken over people's
movement, 82n

South Africa, hybrids, 126

South Africa, Union of: prejudice
against Jews, 82

Soviet Union, see Russia

Sowden, Lewis, 82

Spain, population of complex descent,
122

Spanish-Indian crosses in Mexico, 116

Spanish-Maya crosses in Yucatan, 116

Species, continuity, 14; Aristotelian
concept of, 28; concepts of Linnaeus,
Blumenbach, and Cuvier, 28; of
Darwin, 29; no longer fixed and
immutable, 29; what human con-
sists of, 35

Species population, 41, 43

Speke, J. H., 173

Spencer, Herbert, 175

Spender, Stephen, 245

Spinoza, B., 178

Springfield, Mass., community -school
plan in education for democracy
and cooperation, 251, 253-58; how
plan is set up, 255; how it functions:
adult education, 256; outside the
school: leaders also learn, 257; the
city, 257 f.; most practical scheme
for combating "race" prejudice,
258

Stael, Madame de, quoted, 63

State, foundations, 173

Steggerda, Morris, 41, n7ff. passim,
207. 209

Sterility, notion that hybridization re-
sults in, 106

Sterilization, 136

Stockard, Charles, quoted, m; his
reasoning refuted, 122 ff.

Stockbreeding, 108

Stoddard, Lothrop, 76; reactionary
racist views, 7

Struggle, term confused with war, 166

INDEX

"Sub-races," new, created upon basis of
differences in characters of head, 3

Sullivan, L. R., 116

Sumner, Charles, 241

Sunlight, effect upon skin color, 50;
effect upon pigmentless tissues, 51

Suture closure in Negroes and whites,

i95> 199
Sweat, 212
Sweat glands, 214

Tahitian-English crosses, no

Teachers, see Educators

Temperament, differences, 239; Amer-
ican, 239

Tennyson, Alfred, quoted, 161

Terrors, see Fears

Tertullian, quoted, 81

Thoroughbreds, social, 135

Tindale, N. B., quoted, 113

Tirala, Lothar G., 6, 7

Todd, T. Wingate, 194, 202

Todd, T. W., and L. van Gorder, 207

Todd, T. W., and A. Lindala, 203;
quoted, 206

Todd, T. W., and D. W. Lyon, 199

Tolerance, 94

Town meeting, non partisan political,
256

Traits, see Characteristics

Unions, offspring of mixed, see Hy-
brid vigor

United States, discrimination against
Negro, 7; caste system, 68; relation-
ship between economic factor and
racial barriers, 79; stress on pecu
niary success invites antisocial be-
havior, 84; disappearance of Old
American stock, 100; state legisla
tion against mixed marriages, 261
67; race prejudice see California;
Race prejudice; South

Army, suppression of pamphlet

for use by, logn, 14071; comprehen-
sive alpha test: white recruits from
South compared with Negro recruits
from North, 139

Congress, House Military Affairs

Committee, 10971, 14071

Constitution, state laws that con-
travene, 262

Universe, 161, 163

Urges, biological, culturally con-
trolled, 148

U.S.S.R., see Russia

Variability, gene, 34, 39

Variations, distribution, see under

Ethnic groups
Vernier, C. G., 261
Victoria, Queen, mutation of blood

group genes, 34
Vigor, see Hybrid vigor
Voltaire, quoted, xiv, 160

Wales, offspring of Negro-white un-
ions in seaports, 120

Wallace, Henry A., 242; quoted, 77

Wallis-Carteret, 18

War, and "race," 156-79; biological
justification, 157, 158; cost in lives
and dollars. 157, 158; confusion of
terms, 166; for conquest unknown
among primitive peoples, 172 f.;
economic rivalry most potent cause,
174; animals will not war upon own
species, 171; most unnatural of all
animal activities, 172; kills off best,
177; concept of, as an agency of
natural selection breaks down, 178;
no instinct for, in man, 179

"War of Nature," 165

"We Are All Brothers: What Do You
Know about Race?" 268

Weltfish, Gene, 10972, 14072, 268

Western Europe, all people of, belong
to same race, 2

Western World, deplorable state of
thought, 167

White stock, see Archaic white; Cau-
casoid

White-Tahitian crosses, 110

Williams, G. D., 116

Words rule lives, 180

Wordsworth, William, quoted, 16 1

World War I: cost in men and money,

*57
World War II, 237; cost to kill a man,

250

Wright, Sewall, quoted, 108
Wundt, Wilhelm, quoted, 21

Yerkes, R. M., 139

Yiddish language, 222

Yucatan, Maya-Spanish crosses, 116

Zirkle, Conway, xii